Land working

Soil Cultivation: The Hoe and the Plow

This section illustrates the various land working operations as they were performed in the past, starting with soil cultivation through hoeing and plowing.

Particular attention has been given, in both the setup and the exhibition, to plowing. The traditional wooden plow was used for a long time, and a drawing displayed in the museum illustrates its individual components and operating system. Its use did not entirely disappear even when the first iron plows appeared, such as the single-share plow with stilts, the reversible plow, and the single-share plow with a forecarriage. A specimen of the latter is exhibited in the museum. It is most likely the only single-share plow with a forecarriage ever used in the Morano countryside. It was brought by a tenant farming family from the Marche region that arrived in the village in 1924.

Soil Cultivation: The Harrow and the Cultivator, Sowing, Harvesting, Threshing

Soil cultivation involved several land working steps: harrowing, weeding, sowing, harvesting, and threshing. This section focuses primarily on threshing. Special attention has been given, in both the setup and the exhibition, to this phase.

The threshing of wheat and other cereals took place on the threshing floor using one or two stones pulled by oxen. The separation of the grain from the chaff after threshing was done by winnowing and tossing. The skill of the farmers lay in ensuring that the straw was not scattered but instead gathered at the edges of the threshing floor. Even when, in the 1930s, the threshing machine powered by an internal combustion engine appeared, many farmers continued to follow the traditional method for a long time.