Ciren Scene Magazine - Establishing Local Connections
Country Matters by The Hodge ‘A man must plough with such oxen as he hath’.Traditional
During the nineteenth century and earlier, technical books were illustrated at a time before firstly the in- vention of, then the widespread use of photography. Many such illustrations are beautiful representations of the period showing in great detail how the forms of buildings, machinery, dress and animals looked at the time.
Agricultural books are well represented, and the Georgian and Victorian eras were a golden age when writers explored the developing science of crop grow- ing and animal husbandry. We are used to seeing the naïve paintings of farm animals from this period showing vastly exaggerated features.
A waggon from Woodstock, Oxon, 1813
But these are largely com- missioned works by proud owners of champions
and the paid artists emphasised the points that the judges favoured, producing monstrous creatures on canvas that probably shared little with the subject it- self. The more technical illustrations for books tend to show a more actual representation of what was on the ground at the time giving us the chance to compare with what we have today.
What is interesting when it comes to machinery is that Typical naive painting of a prize-winniing pig
without mass production,
the
tools used varied across the land, almost by coun- ty. Indeed, al- most every area had its own style of waggon and essential items such as ploughs were often different too. There was good reason for this as the topogra- phy and environment meant that what suited, say, a light, brackish soil in one part of the country, would have been useless on Cotswold brash – the local con- ditions around here with many large chunks of lime- stone in the earth to be ploughed.
Ayrshire cow 1836
Having such detail from times past helps us under- stand the challenges and solutions found in an era before the combustion engine, computers, GPS and so much more that helps farmers today produce so much more from every acre of productive land. But the challenge is to maintain such improvements in the coming years whilst the human population con- tinues to expand across the world.
Victorian horse-drawn plough
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