Historical Colonial Farm, part 5 - Working the Fields

The station where we spent the largest amount of time was in the fields. The moderator first got the children involved by asking their age and what they typically did each day. Isabella responded she did school work and then would help her momma in the garden. The planter, if you had fields of tobacco and corn you were not a farmer but a planter, exclaimed "all that is good but the school part."

The reasoning was purely survival. The family had to raise enough food to stay alive. While the mothers typically averaged a child every two years, the child did not usually go into the field to work until they were 10 years old. This was of concern because if the child were to work haphazardly and break a few plants, it could mean the loss of a couple days of food. The smaller children were typically given chores with the chickens, walking across the seed to bond with the soil, and helping the mothers with chores near the house. Food was divided with the men getting the most, the women next, then the children got "a little bit" due to the dispersing of the work loads. However, when a child reached 10 years of age, they received double portions to catch up and be prepared to work in the fields.

The field we were in for the day had contained tobacco, corn, and flax. After the crops were harvested, they turned the cows on to it first to eat everything down. Then the sheep to eat even closer, and finally the hogs to turn the dirt over. While the animals were doing their part of the field work, they were also making their fertilizer deposits. The chickens and turkeys would then come through and spread the dung while they gleaned the field over for bugs and left over seeds. All this was in an effort to maximize the use of animals to reduce the amount of physical labor of the planter. A family typically kept 200 acres but would only work about 20 at a time while the animals worked the others. Also, the family had to be as efficient as possible in order to keep all the mouths fed in the family since there was usually a large portion of the family not able to help in the fields for most of the year. Boys were highly prized for their energy and strength that could be turned loose in the fields to help support the family. I once heard someone say, "You never heard a pioneer shake his head in disgust because of the energy in his growing boys!" This is not to say women were looked down upon, they were valued for other areas on the farm like the gardens or sheep. Let's face it, boys just have more upper body strength and this translated, at this time, as more food for the family because more fields could be in production for labor intensive crops like wheat, corn, tobacco, flax, etc.

The planter exclaimed how this field was ready, thanks to the animals before, to be prepped for fall seed. This mix would create a cover crop to help the nutrition of the field. It was a combination of legumes, rye, other miscellaneous seed. But first the remaining grass/weeds had to be gathered. Normally the planter would then burn these piles, but the gov't currently frowned on them burning large open spaces.

After the children had gathered the dry matter from a section of the field, it was time to spread the fall mix. He also told the parents this was not actually done in most of the areas until after Thomas Jefferson. They would just let the field be fallow for 15-20 years as they waited for nature to bring it into production, but current agriculture laws in the state required cover crops for winter and it fits into the self sustaining ideals of the colonists. The reason they typically did not use cover crops until later was simply money. Seed costs money and that was something they had very little of, so why not use the money for important seed like cash crops. What about left over beans and peas as seed, there were none as they would eat them all.

So since spreading seed was a delicate process he asked for all the children over the age of 10 to carry the bucket and cast the seed as high and far as they could while walking the inside perimeter of the fence. Isabella just kept asking if she could have a turn as each 10-13 year old took a few yards before they were "tired out". He eventually let Isabella cast seed because there were no other children 10 and up who would do the work. (Our society has really spoiled the children of today!)

Being the determined spirit she is, Isabella made four complete rounds through the field. She only stopped when she ran out of seed. The turkeys flocked to her thinking she was trowing feed to them, but as the planter exclaimed, "It was a trade off. The turkeys eat a little seed but leave a little fertilizer in its place." After the seed was mostly down, the younger children formed a line, shoulder to shoulder, and walked down the field "to put the seed in the dirt". The bonding helped with germination, and let the younger children feel helpful.