“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him”

When I am back at the old homeland I love to crawl up into the attic and glance at all the old farm tools stashed up there waiting for the next planting season. Over the years of spring cleanings these are the things that will not be thrown away. You can wander into any little country store, antique mall, and sometimes even the occasional restaurant and see these beauties hanging from the rafters. The farming tool of the past has now become a symbol, like the forgotten skeleton of good old Yorick in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. When Hamlet reached in and pulled out this memory a flood of emotions of “the days past” came rushing in. It is the same for me when I glance into that dingy little space above the house.

The First Book of Farming
By Charles L. Goodrich

Check out this site for Antique Farming Tools

Planting Machines

A collection of planting machines. The large central machine is a grass and grain planter. The one on the left, a potato planter. The one on the right, a corn, bean, and pea planter. The three smaller machines in front are hand seed planters. (The First Book of Farming FIG. 48.)

Scythe

An iron beam-plow, with rolling coulter and double clevis.

A PLANK HARROW

SPADING-FORK AND SPADE

Garden Hoe Blade

Sheep Shears
I love this image my grandmother took in the 20’s
By Hazel Holley Crabtree

Wagon

Just for fun check out the artist Rodney Smith. I love it.
“Don Jumping Over Hay Roll, No. 1”