Rural Skills and Knowledge: Farming Info from Long Ago!

Purpose

In 1840 approximately 89% of the American people lived in rural areas of the country. These "country folk" had the skills and knowledge necessary to supply and/or make most of their food and clothes, tools and shelter, furniture and amusements. They raised crops for food and fodder, cared for livestock, used tools we never knew existed to do things we never knew needed doing. And sometimes, they wrote down their thoughts and knowledge and published them for others.

Since 1840 people have been leaving the farms and heading for the cities, until today there are 89% of us living in urban areas. The skills and knowledge it took to be self sufficient have been lost to us as we have become more and more dependent on modern cities, just in time deliveries, and "super stores". Our great grandparents probably did a wider variety of things before breakfast than we do all day long.

Copyright laws in the U.S. are such that everything published before 1923 is now in the Public Domain, and with the advent of the internet and electronic media, many of those books from the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s are store online in giant archives in all sorts of formats, made available at the click of a mouse button. This blog is for the purpose of making this knowledge more available.

To download these files, click on link and RIGHT CLICK on the type of file you wish to have and "save" to your computer. Mac users: Click on link, hold down the "control" key, then click as above and save to your mac.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Farming Info from Long Ago!

The next group of books I have chosen stays with the overview of farming theme. The first is Roman Farm Management, which is the collected works of Cato and Varro from the 2nd century BC. The translation into English from Latin is from 1913. Much of the advice given by these learned ancients appears fairly valid today, despite the fact that they did not have the science behind their understanding that we have. And many of the things they espoused were "rediscovered" in the early 20th century, such as green manures and rigorous management of fallow ground.

The second book, Sketches of Rural Affairs, was published in 1858, also in England, and is listed as a book suitable for presents by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It includes some history of the farm and tools, as well as Biblical quotes and fairly practical instructions. For instance, the author not only explains why cutting wheat too early or too late is a bad thing, but tells the novice farmer how to tell when the grain is ready.

The third selection, The National Farmer's and Housekeeper's Cyclopedia from 1888, was published in New York. This is a large book that includes topics on farming, such as farm building, fences, livestock, field crops, garden crops and orchard crops; but also includes household topics, such as cooking, "fancy work", home medicine and laundry. It finishes with a large section that is simply miscellaneous hints and tips. The hints are in no particular order, and range from things like "To make fruit extracts" to "The best kinds of beds".

I am planning to move on to more specific topics next, probably starting with Kitchen Gardening.

I hope you enjoy these collections!