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.
Millet
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.
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.
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.
An introduction to a new series tracing the history of the countryside in fine paintings. Explains why some English country lanes have so many twisting bends.
In seascapes with waves, and on land with the foliage of trees. Paintings by Turner, Courbet, Gainsborough, Monet, Winslow Homer and more.
Rolling countryside in the Downs of England, the Alban Hills near Rome, Normandy, Pontoise, the Jorat in Switzerland, and the rural Midwest.
The Eclectic Light Company 