HORSES WERE BETTER THAN TRACTORS
(LET ME TELL YOU WHY)
alan skeoch
august 2018
PLOWING IS AS ANCIENT AS CIVILIZATION…MAYBE 6,000 YEARS OLD
“This painting on an Egyptian tomb shows a farmer encouraging two skinny cows to pull a tiny stir plow.”
“Stir plow?”
“Yep…early plows were really just tough tree roots fashioned to a dull point.”
“How could that plow cut sod?”
“It couldn’t. Ancient plowmen only plowed easy fields…no sod…closest thing to bare ground.”
“Bare ground doesn’t grow much food.”
“You got that right…world population was small…farmers just tilled the tops of the hills where a stir plough
would work.”
“Do you mean those rich fertile valleys were just left to the weeds.?”
“Think so. No doubt some poor sap was trying to grow wheat among the weeds.”
“Must have been good healthy work.”
“Bad joke. Most people died young…35 would be old. Do you believe that?”
“Nope. You are like Trump and make up a lot of bull shit.”
“Take it for what it’s worth.”
‘I’ve got better things to do than read your drivel, Alan.”
“Bugger off and do it then.”
“Just kidding…”
“Human beings in western Europe came down off the tips of the hills when the medieval two furrow wheeled plow was invented.”
“More food”
“Fat people started to appear in large numbers.”
