1. Agricultural Work
Agriculture encompasses many kinds of work that are invisible to us. Solar radiation is converted into heat that warms the planet and, through photosynthesis, creates oxygen and sugars that enable life. Transpiration in trees lifts water from the ground. A human climbs rungs of a ladder to pick apples before they fall, Newton-like, to the ground and bruise. Bags of apples are emptied into crates, sorted by hand, lifted and moved to other places. But agriculture also involves the mental-work of devising methods and allocating labor, even when using the simplest tools:
"It is merely a common grain-bag, with one corner of the bottom tied to one corner at the top, and slung over the workman’s left shoulder. A stick, sharpened at each end, and about a foot long, props the mouth open, leaving a triangular opening, into which the apples are thrust as they are picked from the branch. The way in which the lower and upper corner are most conveniently tied together, is by placing a small stone or pebble in the lower corner, (to form a sort of bottom,) and then passing the bag strings around closely above it, and tying them firmly. A piece of stiff leather, buttoned on to the shoulder, serves to protect it from becoming sore if the picking is continued for several days."
And so this author continues in fussy detail, but with consequential implications for apple-pickers who now would be expected to “use both hands, thrusting the fruit rapidly into the open mouth of the bag.” The essays in this section look at farm-work in its most granular detail, especially the kinds performed by hired hands. What did those hands undertake? What was considered “skilled” or “unskilled” work? How has the work changed over time—as farm-work became mechanized and the dominant crops changed?
Works Consulted
-- "A Good Apple Picker." The Geneseo Farmer 23.11 (Nov. 1862): 348. Courtesy of Internet Archive