My farm life chapter when I was young.
Welcome to page (8) my farm life when I was young.
A youth in the farm, I guess with his father, dreaming his own dreams, the picture says more land, this could also have been my dream, if I had more land, I could have stayed in the farm all my life.
My farm life chapter when I was young.
Dear readers, this
article is the continuation of our previous hub, my farm life experience and
views, so, here again I am lamenting about my early childhood life in the farm,
which has been one of those facts of life that to most of us could happen during
our life, so whatever I am telling you here is just the story of my life and
nothing else. Now we can also say that no matter how negative a story could be
and there are plenty of negative in my life story, there must be also some
positive things that could be used from us later in life, when we can;
therefore, let me tell you this other chapter of my life story, the way that I
have lived it and how I see it now.
I believe that to
give you a better picture overall, of what life was like in the farms of my native
town of Genzano di Lucania when I was young, I need also to tell you about many
other things as well and the town itself, and then the ways of how people used
to live in those times and what was happening at the time when I was young. So,
let me talk about the town and the population first.
From my memory, I
believe that the town of Genzano di Lucania early in the twentieth century had
reached a population of about 7,000 inhabitants, in the forties when I was
young the population had grown to about 8,000 and reached 8,389 in 1951
inhabitants, and this is the highest number of people on record that I know of.
Even though some people believe that there were near 10,000 people living in
Genzano. But, today the number of people that used to live in Genzano does not
matter anymore, because in the seventies it had shrunk to only 5,500 inhabitants
or there about. The reasons for this population shrinkage, it was because lots
of people had to emigrate somewhere in those times. The reasons why they had to
emigrate will be fully understood, when I explain what happened to the rural
community of this town including myself. Today at the present time while I am
writing this article the first time, the town of Genzano has 6200 inhabitant or
there about.
My native town of
Genzano is known as Genzano di Lucania in order to distinguish it from another
Italian town Genzano di Roma. Anyhow this Genzano di Lucania these days has a
territory of about 21,000 Hectares of land if I remember right, and about 80%
of this land is arable land, and it is mostly used to grow wheat, especially
durum wheat; the rest of the land is used to grow grapes vines or olive trees
and other farm produce, and there are also reserves or grazing land; as anyone
can see from what I have said here, this town owes its wealth to the rural
community that produces wheat, because this town is well known to produce lots
of very high quality durum wheat, which the mills that make pasta rush to buy
it when it’s harvest time. Now even if the mills rush to buy this durum wheat,
the price of wheat is not high, so the farmers make only enough money to keep
going and one has to think that it takes one year to produce and harvest a crop
of wheat, so it is not that good for the farmers; there are also other things that
must be taken into consideration, as I will continue to explain while I am
writing my life story.
Anyhow as I have
already mentioned above, there are lots of other produce from the farms also,
because we used to have mixed farming, but these produce are used locally, and
if some of them are sold out of the town, they are not a great deal to make any
difference.
At the time when I
was young there were lots of small farms in Genzano, and although the most
important and the largest crop that brought in the money was durum wheat, in
reality they had to practice mixed farming for their own needs, which I will
try to explain how the farms were run at those times when I was young.
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How the farms were run then?
Now, let me explain
how these small farms in southern Italy were run until the fifties, when things
started to change a great deal, because of the new farming machine that were
coming out, like the tractor and other machine that were very effective in replacing
manual work; now, because these machines helped the farmers run their farms
with less manual workers, the people that were employed in the farms had to
find other jobs. Now, this is just one explanation, but let us describe how
things were done then, in order to understand the whole situation and what was
happening to us young would be farmers.
When I was young
during the fifties, before these farming machines became affordable to the
average small farmers, all the farmers used to have mixed farming, because it
was necessary to have mixed farming then for many reason, today mixed farming
is practiced to a much less extend, and I will try to explain the reasons why
this has happened. But to make it clear to you dear reader, I should describe
the different way of how the land was (had to be) used in the old days, and how
it is (would be) used today: In the old days to till the soil people used to do
it all by hand, just like what we still do today in our own small home gardens,
so, they would dig the soil in very small plots with a hoe, or something like
that. But on normal fields in the farms the soil was tilled by ploughing the
fields with horse power or other strong animals. Therefore, there was a need
for a lot of people to be fed to work the fields, and there were a lot of
animals also to be fed to work the fields.
So, this need to
feed so many mouths required a lot of produce and also a variety of produce,
for this reason mixed farming was required, because it was the only way to
produce all this variety of foods that were required, in order to feed the
animals and for other reasons as well, in the old days for this reason and also
for other reasons as well the sowing fields had to be divided into a
three-year-rotation, not only to achieve these variety of foods, but it was
also necessary to rotate the fields then in order to keep them producing,
otherwise the soil would become tired and produce very little, in other words
if we would continue to use the fields every year they would produce next to
nothing and therefore it was not worth working them, for this reason our
forbear had devised this three year rotation, which worked thus;
One year a field
would be fallow land and it would not be used at all, or used very little
growing broad beans or something like that, then the next year it would be sown
with durum wheat, and the year after that the same field would be sown with
oats or barley, or other light seeds, and the year after that to fallow land
again. So, in realty there was only one third of the land producing durum wheat
each year, which was the produce that brought in money to the farmers.
When I was young a
lot of people used to work in those farms as I have said already, and it was
hard physical work specially at certain times of the year, and there was no
much money to be made, with the exception of every now and then when we had a
really good wheat harvest; but when the harvest was lean everybody would
suffer, and all one could do was to start all over again for another year, and
so, one would be hoping and perhaps praying God for a better harvest next year,
yes in those times people were a lot more religious than today, so, they
believed in God and prayed God and all the saints that they could think of,
hoping that they could or would help them produce good harvests.
Anyhow, there were
too many years of lean harvest when I was young, some average and only a very
few years we had good harvests. But somehow people kept going on, and they were
so used to poverty that they accepted it and seemed to be happy just the same,
because they did not know of a better life. But one has to keep in mind that
the main harvest is only once a year, and one year is a very long time when
there is not enough money to go around, even to buy those things that were
really necessary to live a modest life.
For all the work
that I did in the farm in my youth, I earned almost nothing, but I was able to
eat plain wholesome food, and buy a few cheap cloths to keep warm in winter,
which sounds very bad these days, but then when there was nothing better that
one could do, even this hard and unpleasant way of life would have to do, as
long as one could live a healthy life; perhaps living a healthy life was the
only thing that we could achieve easily then, because the air was healthier in
the country, the life was very boring but at the same time it was not mentally
stressful compared to living in towns these days, and if there was any complain
about a stench that came from the farm animals, it was something that would not
harm anybody, it is only natural that all animals smell of something, we smell
also of something even if we don’t notice it.
The human side of farming
Now let us look at
the human side of farming, so, let me go back to my own life in the farm, and
my experience as a young boy. If we want to understand that better, one needs
to see how the ways of living had been set up, from the generations before us
for their own needs for one reason or another.
Anyhow, at the time
when I was young in Genzano every family had a dwelling in town, no matter to
which group of people or families one belonged, we all had a home in town even
if it was only a room or a few rooms that we could live-in in the town itself.
But the farmers’ families not only had a home in town like everybody else,
where their women folks elderly people and children lived; but most of the
farmers had also a rustic farm building in the fields, where the farmer would
keep his animals, and with the help of his workers if he had any workers he
would work his fields from there. The farmers’ children especially those that
were to become farmers one day would start working in the farm very early in
life, or as soon as they would finish their compulsory schooling years, that in
those times were just the primary schools.
The compulsory
primary schools in Italy in those times were up to grade five; now, today it
would seem that you could not learn much in five years, but in those times, we
were taught to read and write, we were taught the four main math operations,
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, which are the base of just
about everything, we were asked to solve simple problems with them at least
ones a week; we were also taught about our human history, even if it wasn’t in
small details, it covered old history up to the Christian era, middle age
history up to the discovery of America and modern history; it wasn’t a lot, but
it gave us just enough to understand that the world changes and one Era ends
and a new one begins. Anyhow, now let us go back to tell you my farm life
story, because this is the real reason that I am writing this article.
Now, some of the
youths whose families were better off financially would start to help in the
farm only during summer for a year or two, and then as they became older they
would start staying in the farm full time the whole year. But I wasn’t that
lucky and at the time when I left school the first time, I was only 10 years
old and I was going to be 11 years old during that year, when I had to start
full time for the whole year in the farm. At that time young boys were only
required to attend school up to grade 5, and I had already done so, so I went
to help in our family farm full time. Then a few years later the schooling laws
changed, and all the youths had to attend school up to grade 8, or be at least
14 years old to leave school. So, I and a few other boys of my same age were
the last of the little educated youths. (Now just to make it clear to our
readers during my life, I have read many books and every now and then whenever
I have been able to I have tried to continue to study; and even though I have
not been to college, I have studied and done some courses in building and
quantity surveying. But now let me go back to my farm life story.)
Now you can imagine
how I felt in the farm when I was young; I was perhaps the youngest boy around
for miles so to speak, and I was of that age when young boys like me would
start thinking and wandering about how best one could find a way into society,
because one becomes aware of the need to be social and friendly with people,
otherwise one would become shy and withdrawn just like I did.
Anyhow, this old
way of living in the farms was very hard especially for me, because, since the
great loss of my father when I was 5 years old, my family had lived mourning
him and a life withdrawn from society; so, now that we were all over that
period of grief that any family can have, I felt that somehow I was a bit more
withdrawn that the other boys of the same age. I needed a break more than
everybody else, but it was not to be, because I was needed to help in the farm,
so, I ended up working in the family farm and I became more isolated than ever,
and that was no good for me socially.
My helping
(working) in the family farm when I was young was no good for me socially,
since there is nothing to learn socially in the farm except farm things, which
in the end they might even be put to good use, but only from those persons that
would be able to practice farming during their whole lifetime.
Farming life of
those days was so hard and boring, especially for me at that particular time of
my life when I was young. So, nowadays when I think about it, it makes me feel
so hurt and unhappy and I ask myself why this had to happen to me, and I feel
so hurt that I would like to tell you a story beginning with, ‘When I was
young’ just to show you how much harder life was then compared with today’s
ways of life.
Now let me add this observation here, while I am editing this article, I
have come to the conclusion that no matter how hard life is for anyone of us,
we should not despair as we could always try to do better, you see, today I am
able to write this article even though I have not been trained to write when I
was young, just because I have not given up and I have tried to improve myself
whenever I could.
Now that I have
explained the ways of life in the farms of those days, mentally I am going over
the farm life of my ancestors, who had lived the same hard life as I did and
they did not lament about it because they did not know better; and then I think
about what it would be the farm life like today compared to old times; you see
I want to compare all those things together, just to have a clear picture of
what is happening to us. By comparing the farm life of these generations, I have
come to the conclusion that I and those youths that as me ended up working in
the farms when we were young, we were the last unlucky ones, because today even
if a young man ends up working in the farms, they start when they are older and
they cannot be as lonely as we were, because today they can have the company of
electronic devices, like the radio and the mobile phones, so one can always
keep in touch with the rest of the world community.
I think that I have
said enough in this article, so see you in my next article where I will tell
you a bit more about my farm life. See you there.
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