Painted by Jules Breton, Jean-François Millet, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Léon Augustin Lhermitte and others during the late 19th century.
history
Rural depopulation as labour moved to work in city factories, dominance of larger suppliers in food markets, draining waterlogged land, and the development of the tractor.
Ploughing, sowing, weeding, calving and lambing, the hay harvest, sheep shearing, the grain harvest, fruit harvests, then back again to the start.
Self-help thatching and maintaining your scythe, blacksmiths hard at work in their forges, a tilt-hammer in another forge, and a tinker fixing pots.
From the Middle Ages, strictly regulated for trade between producer and consumer, then dominated by increasingly rich merchants and middlemen.
The humble vegetable that enabled Europe’s population boom in the 19th century. When diseased by blight, it resulted in more than a million deaths.
Mow the grass, scatter it about, gather it in windrows, cock it, scatter then windrow it again, until it’s dry and ready to stack. How to make hay the hard way.
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.
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.
The Eclectic Light Company 