Vermont Hay Harvesting Films

摘要

The University of Vermont Libraries newest digital collection is a series of three films which document hay harvesting techniques in the 1940s. The University of Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station produced these films in the 1940s as part of a Robert M. Carter study of hay harvesting techniques and costs in Vermont. The films capture hay harvesting at a time when there was an increasing use of power machinery, and they show a range of techniques including older methods of hand harvesting, as well as newer tractor driven methods. In Carter's study he writes, "While nearly half of all farmers contacted relied upon horses for handling some field equipment, combinations of horse- and motor-operated equipment were frequent. Forty-one percent of the farmers owned tractors, and 21 percent had trucks."1 These films capture hay harvesting right in the middle of the transition from horse to machine driven equipment.