Saturday, June 16, 2007

Agricultural Nostalgia

A little known fact, is that after I graduated, but before I went to grad school, I worked in farming. Thus, I have something of a soft spot and interest in matters agricultural.

A couple of days ago, I ran across an interesting video on a web site I was looking at. Fortunately, I was able to find the video on YouTube. I have decided to share it here.

What makes the video interesting is that it depicts farming techniques from over twenty-five years ago. I found the video particularly emotive, because all the agricultural tasks that it shows are things that I have done, from stacking hay, to turning hay and even working on a potato harvester.

The other curious thing is that the equipment depicted in use is also fairly similar to the equipment I worked with. Not all the similarities are perfect though. The video was taken in North Yorkshire, England in 1980. I was farming quite a bit later and elsewhere.

This video documents farming methods which have now been superseded by innovations like the flat-eight bail grab. Many of the tractors lack cabs, air conditioning and most of the modern comforts, that are now taken for granted. Indeed, the lack of roll bars on some of the tractors would have made them illegal, even by the time that I was working the land. Thus, this video is an interesting historical artifact. I like it, because it reminds of some happy times in my youth.

The CP

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Listed on 
BlogShares web stats Site Meter