Historic farming

History and fun facts

The three-field system

In the Middle Ages many villages in Europe divided their farmland into three large open fields. One field got winter grain, such as wheat or rye, the second spring crops, such as barley, oats, peas and beans, and the third lay fallow. Livestock grazed on the fallow field and manured the ground at the same time. Every year the roles moved on by one field. That way two thirds of the land was in use, instead of half with a two-field system.

• Every farmer had strips in all three fields, so good and poor land was shared fairly.
• At Laxton in England the fields are still worked this way, as the last village with a real open-field system.
• In Drenthe, in the Netherlands, the old open fields by the village are called the es. Villages such as Orvelte still lie beside one.

Ridge and furrow

A heavy plough always turns the soil to one side. By ploughing up and down from the middle of a strip for centuries, a rounded ridge formed with a furrow on each side. The furrows drained the rainwater, so the ridge stayed dry enough. In the English Midlands you can still see these wavy pastures in many places, especially when the sun is low.

• Many strips follow a gentle reverse S. That is because the ploughman with his long team of oxen started turning early.
• At the end of the strips lay the headland, where the plough could turn.

Celtic fields

Celtic fields are small, almost square fields from the late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Roman period. Between the fields lie low banks of earth and stones that built up along the edges over time. From above the pattern looks like a honeycomb; in Dutch they are called raatakkers, honeycomb fields.

• The name Celtic fields was coined by the British archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford in the 1920s. They were not necessarily made by Celts.
• In the Netherlands well-preserved Celtic fields lie on the Veluwe and in Drenthe, often under forest or heath.
• Laser height maps have revealed many new Celtic fields that you can hardly see from the ground.

Roman centuriation

The Romans divided conquered or new land into a strict grid. Surveyors used a groma to set out straight lines: the decumanus and the cardo, and along them a road every 20 actus. That made square centuriae of about 710 by 710 metres. The land often went to veteran soldiers.

• An actus is 120 Roman feet, about 35.5 metres. In this tool one block is one actus.
• In the Po valley in Italy, along the Via Aemilia, roads, ditches and field boundaries still follow the Roman grid.
• In Tunisia and Croatia you can still see Roman plots from the air as well.

Rice terraces

On steep slopes in Asia, farmers made terraces that follow the contour lines exactly, so that every terrace is level and can hold water. Water flows down from terrace to terrace. The Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, built by the Ifugao around Banaue, have been on the World Heritage List since 1995. The Hani terraces of Yuanyang in China followed in 2013.

• Above the Ifugao terraces lies forest that holds the rainwater and slowly passes it on to the terraces.
• In winter the Hani terraces are flooded and mirror the sky.
• The edges of the terraces are small dikes of stone or clay that keep the water on the terrace.

Dutch polders

In the Middle Ages farmers reclaimed the peat lands of Holland and Utrecht with long, narrow plots between ditches. Draining made the peat shrink and the land sink, until it lay lower than the water around it. Mills then had to lift the water up and over the dike into the storage canal. Later whole lakes were drained, such as the Beemster in 1612, with a strict grid of roads and plots.

• The Beemster has been a World Heritage Site since 1999, like the mills of Kinderdijk since 1997.
• The millwright Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater helped to drain the Beemster.
• Pollard willows stand along many ditches. Their roots hold the ditch bank together and their branches were used for baskets and fences.

Aztec chinampas

Around Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City, the Aztecs built long field beds of mud and plants in the shallow lakes, with canals in between. They are called chinampas. On the edges they planted tall, narrow willows, the ahuejotes, whose roots hold the beds together. Because water is always close by, they could harvest several times a year.

• In Xochimilco, in the south of Mexico City, chinampas are still in use and boats sail through the canals.
• Xochimilco has been on the World Heritage List together with the historic centre of Mexico City since 1987.
• Maize, beans and squash often grew together there. In Minecraft, wheat, beetroots and pumpkins stand in for them.

Basin irrigation along the Nile

In ancient Egypt the Nile flooded its banks every year. Farmers divided the land into basins with earth dikes. The water stood for weeks, left fertile silt behind and was then let out, after which the fields were sown. The Egyptians even had three seasons tied to the river: flood, growth and harvest.

• With a shaduf, a long lever with a bucket and a counterweight, people lifted water from the river. It already appears in old Egyptian tomb paintings.
• Nilometers measured how high the water stood, to estimate the harvest and the taxes.
• Since the Aswan High Dam was finished in 1970, the Nile no longer floods every year.

Moray

Moray lies high in the Andes near Cusco, in Peru. The Incas built round terraces there that step down into a bowl like an amphitheatre. The temperature differs a lot between the top and the bottom. That is why many researchers think the Incas tried out crops there under different conditions, although no one knows for sure.

• Stones stick out of the walls and together form a staircase: flying stairs.
• The Incas also built terraces along ordinary slopes, the andenes, with channels for water.
• Potatoes come from the Andes. There are thousands of varieties there.