Old farm tools - Hoes
preserving rural bygones
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If there is one tool which depicts back-breaking hard work before mechanization within the fields it is the hoe. Imagine the many women, men and children vigorously hoeing out weeds between crop rows or singling out turnips and root vegetables during a hot and dusty day.
Hand-hoeing field crops continues on a small scale today and was quite common into modern times. An interesting point to make, a farmer in the vegetable growing district of the Evesham Vale was using a steerage horse hoe even into the 1980s, weeding between cabbage rows without compacting the soil around the delicate young plants. This five row hoe required a man to sit upon the metal implement seat (a hessian sack as a cushion was a must) and steer the drawn hoe between the rows of cabbages cutting out the weeds and aerating the soil at the same time. Concentration had to be sharp otherwise a length of seedling cabbages could easily be cut out leaving gaps throughout the rows which had to be filled again by hand planting more cabbage plants.
Hand-hoeing field crops continues on a small scale today and was quite common into modern times. An interesting point to make, a farmer in the vegetable growing district of the Evesham Vale was using a steerage horse hoe even into the 1980s, weeding between cabbage rows without compacting the soil around the delicate young plants. This five row hoe required a man to sit upon the metal implement seat (a hessian sack as a cushion was a must) and steer the drawn hoe between the rows of cabbages cutting out the weeds and aerating the soil at the same time. Concentration had to be sharp otherwise a length of seedling cabbages could easily be cut out leaving gaps throughout the rows which had to be filled again by hand planting more cabbage plants.