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| Authored by: artp on Wednesday, February 20 2013 @ 11:31 PM EST |
I was thinking of introducing Stone Age and medieval
agriculture into an argument about a very recent
development. I was also thinking about the falsity of acting
as if there were no alternatives to poisons.
Farming without poisons is very possible, although not
without a three year transition period if they have been
used previously. Other generations were much more aware of
how to avoid weeds than we are today. We assume that things
were always like this. But they weren't.
As for different ages of agriculture, I can think of many
watersheds:
The domestication of animals,
The first use of draft animals,
The invention of the doubletree hitch,
The development of wagons,
The development of draft horse breeds,
The development of the moldboard plow,
The invention of the reaper,
The invention of the stationary steam engine,
The development of the steam tractor,
The development of belt and bucket conveyors and grain auger
elevators,
The advent of the Sears & Roebuck mail order catalog,
The development of the small gas-powered tractor,
The development of the small square baler,
And many more that I am not familiar with.
Each one of these caused a major shift is how agriculture
was carried out. Personally, I was very attached to my
favorite bale hook. I think I can still find it somewhere.
Can't imagine baling without it, or trying to stick those
huge forks into a stack of loose hay.
I was trying to think of what might have put the forge out
of business, and couldn't come up with anything technical. I
think it might have been just an economic issue coupled with
the better attributes of tools produced on larger forges. Or
perhaps they just disappeared with the draft horses.
---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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