They drew carts and ploughs, in preference to horses where power rather than speed was needed. Also for milk, beef and their hides processed into leather.
history
Arable farmers learned to rotate crops, to prevent loss of soil fertility. At the same time, land was enclosed to remove it from use for communal grazing.
Paintings of fields of buckwheat (not a cereal at all), sainfoin (ideal for horses), flax (oil paints and linen), and clover. And how the Dutch Golden Age changed its agriculture.
Sheep were the best mobile source of dung, and used to fertilise the soil used to raise crops such as staple cereals, wheat and rye. They also provided fleeces to generate the wool trade.
Turning harvested and threshed grain into food required it to be crushed into flour in mills, powered either by wind or water.
Threshing cut cereal using flails, horses towing a roller, oxen trampling the corn, a sledge, a hand-cranked machine, and a large threshing machine. With Monet’s grainstacks.
Gleaning has Biblical origins, to let the poor get their own free supply of grain. Was it confined to the poorest, and did it remain a right, later in Europe?
Was ripe wheat cut using a sickle, hook, or scythe? Paintings from 1565 to 1890 show a preference for scythes when men were available.
Stone-picking to improve the soil. A series of paintings of the Sower, broadcasting seed by hand. Weeding the fields to help the crop grow.
Preparing the soil to deliver its best yields using a mould-board or turning plough, pulled by a team of oxen, helps the soil drain and breaks it up into a fine tilth ready for sowing.
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