random Nj,,and a thought of farming years ago

picking rocks from an old hedgerow in nj,,,,,someone cleared this field many years ago,,picked all these rocks,made a wall,and planted a crop,,,,with no machines,,,we really should think how hard our ancestors worked the pictures really dont show the amount of rocks that were picked off the field,,its mind boggling to think how hard farmers and homesteaders worked

Yes it is. Worked in the fields and woods dawn to dark 6 days a week then home to do chores and care for the animals and family. 7th day walked to town to worship God and thank Him for their bounty! Plus did chores etc. before and after.
Died at an early age,50 was an old man, wore out from their toil.
The world may not be perfect today but I prefer it to then!

I would agree, my grandparents small farm, south and east of here 20 miles or so, is essentially not much different than Appalachia type mountains, terrain, heck of a view nearby right off one of the rural roads. The contiguous lands that abound and were part of theirs, is all stone walls and in the early 80's I was there for 2 years, and I was amazed that some of them were neatly stacked and they ran for miles it seemed. Very large tracts of land in whole, all connected, all in forest at the time, and it is mountainous terrain, lots of boulders and rocks. Not all were stacked 4' high and symmetrical, but there were sections that were, I had never seen a wall intact and that high, someone spent some time on it for sure. I would really like to see it today, sadly they tore the old general store down/house that was theirs and their huge barn as well, that went many years before. Those stone walls, define the word work. I just can't imagine all the hand labor it took to initially clear these fields, and even into the 50's around here it was all fence lines and fields, clean fence lines, meaning someone had to maintain all of them. They'd cringe if they ever saw it today. That era was not long before me, as kids all we knew was barbed wire fences and how to get around, over, through them etc. when exploring the woods, it was everywhere and I still find locust posts and or know where sections still stand, its something when you think of all of it, I'd just have loved to see all the old farms, barns and land the way it was, old aerial photos do give us a glimpse though.

Type in an address in the below site, its incredible the first time you see a familiar place, I had a real hard time figuring out where I am now, then one landmark tipped me off, lot of fun to look back !
NETR

even look at mechanical farming. Back in its day a Farmall M was a BIG tractor. Spent many more hours on a machine like that in a field then they do today on those monsters with all the extra creature comforts (radios, a/c, power steering....)on board. Make all those big tractors illegal how many of the big farms could afford the labor to run that long

They were doing it wrong...

I bet they would be so jealous of us. Imagine in 200 years when people laugh at us for sitting behind the wheel of our tractors, instead of just sitting in a ergonomic comfort pod with a gps monitor and a drone for back-up.

We are doing it wrong...



Imagine having a robot that digs your potatoes without disturbing the soil strata, one potato at a time... Yeah, it will happen...

Here in the Catskills of NY those walls are everywhere. On our place about every 100 yards. I used to
build walls, retaining and free standing have old pictures but not many on the computer. Here is one at
home that shows some of the wall I built 20+ years ago.