School: Mount Delvin
- Location:
- Mountdelvin, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Mrs. K. O' Regan
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0248, Page 045
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- XML School: Mount Delvin
- XML Page 045
- XML “The Crops”
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- Long ago the old people used to sow very little crops, but they worked very hard all the same. First they dug the soil with a spade or a loy. Then to make the soil fine for sowing oats they got a drag made out of a fork and broke the lumps with the drag.
Then they would shake the seed with their hands, and dig dykes in the fields to keep the field dry, and throw the clay in over the seed to cover it. When the oats grew up they cut it with a hook, and took it out and tied it in small sheaves with their hands.
When it was dry they brought it in the garden on their backs and then thrashed it by hand with a flail. They gave the straw to the cows and brought the straw to the market and sold some of it. Then they brought the seed and made meal from it at the mill.
They sowed very little potatoes also. First they turned the land with a spade because they had no ploughs. They then put out manure on the land, and then sowed the slits. They dug the dykes and sowed the potatoes with a spade or loy by hand.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Shawn O' Regan
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Mountdelvin, Co. Roscommon
- Informant
- John Regan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 78
- Address
- Mountdelvin, Co. Roscommon
