What a Lovely Suprise! Two New Crappy Old History Books on Farming

I was rather testy this morning. I complained that I was going to spend a considerable part of my day

chopping vegetables,

processing tomatoes-- some chopped, some pureed--

sautee-ing said veggies,

and adding homegrown dried herbs

to the veggie-tomato concoction.

Not to mention that I had to bake zucchini bread and do my Monday chores, leaving me with no time to do what I really wanted to do: lay around eating bon bons and reading crappy old books. 

As it turns out, my sacrifice is appreciated!

The card

and sentiments that accompanied the lovely surprise...

TWO NEW CRAPPY OLD BOOKS ON FARMING!

Thank you, Daughter C & Miss M!

What a Lovely Suprise! Two New Crappy Old History Books on Farming!

Although I've only spent a few minutes thumbing through it, I already love the smaller volume, Farm Management (Jacob Hiram Arnold. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1919). It talks about the farm "labourer,"

Thus the men who labour on such farms are intelligent, have initiative, take responsibility, learn to be self-reliant, energetic and thrifty. Because democratic institutions and customs prevails in such communities, men trained in this way find opportunity to employ their training... .

Long story short-- they are citizens.

There's a great black and white plate of orchards in Appalachia. I learn that in 1904 the cost of ploughing, disking, harrowing, drilling, heading and stacking, etc. was $5.55 per acre.

How could I not fall in love with this crappy old book filled with simple charts and tables?
~~

The larger volume, English Farming: Past and Present (The Right Honorable Lord Ernle. Long, Green and Co., London, New York. 1922) is reference book, of a certain sort. Reading the preface, I'm not at all sure I understand the author's point of view.


The book traces framing in England from the 1200's to the WWI. Given 800 years, the author's point of view may matter. 


What do you make of this-- one of the authors' two convictions that motivated the first (1912), and second (1922) editions:

[T]he small number of person who owned agricultural land might some day make England the forcing-bed of schemes for land-nationalisation, which countries, where the ownership of the soil rested on a more democratic basis, repudiated as destructive of all forms of private property.

 What a great book to have in my library! 

Thank you!