Framed by the birds in the sky and the rich earth below, Lancaster County's Old-Order Amish farmers use horse and mule-drawn plows to till their fields as they have for many generations before them.
Provenance
Photographs and slides donated by Discover Lancaster/Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, June 2016.
For Amish farmers in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, late summer signals long days and a bountiful wheat harvest. The traditional farming "tools" of an Old Order Amishman are the help of his sons and his team of horses, rather than the mechanized equipment of his neighbors.
Provenance
Photographs and slides donated by Discover Lancaster/Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, June 2016.
Horses rather than tractors cultivate fields. This preference for animal and human labor has freed the Amish from fossil fuel dependency, one of the hallmarks of Schumacher's vision of a frugal conserver society.
Provenance
Photographs and slides donated by Discover Lancaster/Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, June 2016.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's field patchwork, barns, silos and peaceful skyline create a scenic backdrp for an Amish farmer at tobacco planting time in late May. Production of cigar filler tobacco is well-suited to Amish farming methods which rely on family labor and mule-drawn equipment.
Provenance
Photographs and slides donated by Discover Lancaster/Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, June 2016.
Following his father's footsteps, an Amish boy tags along as his father uses a mule-drawn grain drill to make a spirng platning of soubeans, spring oats or afalfa. On farms averaging 55 acres, Amish farmers using similar methods till a quarter of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's 336,150 acres.
Provenance
Photographs and slides donated by Discover Lancaster/Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, June 2016.
"C'mon there, we're headed home", an Amish farmer calls encouragingly to his span of seven mules. Such sights are common along Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's country roads as spring filed work progresses.
Provenance
Photographs and slides donated by Discover Lancaster/Pennsylvania Dutch Country Visitors Bureau, June 2016.
