Sunday, March 15, 2015

Before and After

1900's to Present

In the 1900's farm life was different then today. Back then technology wasn't very used. In the farm land they still have to grow wheat, vegetables, hay, and many more crops but it wasn't as easy as today. Back then every chore had to be done by hand, tool, or with some animal. For example, lets say you had to get milk from the cows. There wouldn't be any machine to help suck out the milk, you had to milk the cows by hand. Not just one cow but possible hundreds and then bring it all the way to the local market to sell them. There wasn't any cars, just horses and wagons.

Figure 1: In this picture you can see how use to prepare the holes in
the ground for the crops. They would have this stick in the ground so 
once the animals start pulling it would leave a line of dirt to plant the 
seeds. Then they would cover up the hole and wait for it to grow. 
It would also be similar with the crops. For instance if the farmers wanted to plant a whole acer of carrots you didn't have a machine to help you dig. You just had your animals and some wood. So the way the famers would do it was they would have these wood or metal digging into the ground, so once that was made, it would help them put the seeds into the holes for the crops. (Figure 1).  During the 1900's the animals were as happy as they can be. They had eaten a normal, natural diet. Even tho we still killed animals to eat meat. It was in a less human way. They just killed them and ate there meat for them selfs or sold them to a local market. Instead of living in a small cramped place with lots of animals they would have a healthy life style. They would help the farmers with their work, get some exercise, and they would go out into fields and actual eat grass.  In the article "Changes in Agriculture, 1900 to 1950" it had said, "During the last 50 years, farming in the United States has been revolutionized by the widespread use of machinery and by the direct use of scientific knowledge and improved methods in agricultural production. " The reason why its called the era of technology is because all the new technology that was created has change farm life as we know it. Tractors started to be developed (Figure 2), transportations was being much faster, and according to the article, "four out of five farms had electricity. " So the more electricity the farms had the easier there lives would be. Once the tractors started being used by the farmers, the number of animals being out in the field started to decrease rapidly.
Figure 2: The tractor was a machine very used in the farm like 
It had made farming much more easier than before. With this
With this machine it had help farms produce more crops than before. 

As time passed, animals were the number one item on there menus. Although the population started to increase and more cities were being developed. They needed to find a way to feed there people and animals were the first things in there minds. This was the time period were the animal slaughter houses were being created and how we feed our animals. As I mentioned before the animals in the 1900's had a natural diet but unlike today we feed our animals an entirely different diet. According to the article "'FOOD' Documentary - A Revealing Look at the Sourcing of Our Modern Food Supply" from Mercola.com, it said, "Fish no longer eat other fish, and cattle eat very little grass, which is their natural food source. Instead, cattle eat corn, chicken eat corn and fish, and fish eat byproducts for cow and poultry. " Now the farmers are not just making crops for us but for other the animals too. The way it works is that we feed the cows a lot of corn to fatten them up. Although since we don't like the to eat pure fat, we also inject them with hormones. The hormones are to help the cow produce more muscles tissue so if we eat the animal we wont just be eating cow fat. Nevertheless lets not forget the fish, we don't feed them smaller fish but a concoction of soy protein (to make them fat) and then beef or chicken byproducts, including cattle blood, bone, and chicken feathers.  after reading both this article I would concluded that sure technology has help make things easier but in the past they had a much more healthy food supply then today. So the next time you eat something remember what they feed the animals and what you may be eating too.


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