UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Children and adults can learn about agriculture prior to the 1930s in two new educational videotapes, available from Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
Narrated by Jerome Pasto, volunteer curator of the Pasto Agricultural Museum and associate dean emeritus in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, the videos walk viewers through the history of the production of small grains and corn. Using antique implements inside the museum, Pasto demonstrates how foods were harvested before the advent of electricity and power equipment.
"The videos are suitable for early grades of elementary school -- or anyone interested in our agricultural heritage," Pasto says.
"Farming in the Old Days: Small Grains" describes how farmers produced, harvested and threshed small grains from 4000 B.C. to the 1930s. The 31-minute video traces early tools used for harvesting, including a 6,000-year-old clay sickle from the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, flails made of wood and leather and a winnowing tray that used windpower to clean the chaff from the grain.
"Farming in the Old Days: Corn," a 25-minute video, covers planting methods used by early Native Americans and pioneers, and traces progress in corn planting and harvesting through the 1930s. "This video traces progress in corn planting, from the 'poke-a-hole-in-the ground' method, to a corn planter with hopper, to a horse-drawn corn planter," says Pasto.
The Pasto Agricultural Museum is an unusual museum located nine miles southeast of State College at the Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs. The museum houses more than 300 rare, antique implements once used for farming and homemaking. Items include early lamps made of animal fat and rushes, a charcoal-heated clothes iron and a dog-powered treadmill used to churn butter and wash clothes. For information about group tours, call 814-865-2541, or send e-mail to pastoagmuseum@psu.edu.
For more information about the videos, contact Ag Information Services, The Pennsylvania State University, 119 Ag Administration Building, University Park, PA, 16802; phone 814-865-6309; FAX 814-863-9877. Price is $35 for one video, or $50 for both. Allow three weeks for delivery. Make checks payable to Penn State or include a purchase order.
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EDITORS: For more information, contact Jerome Pasto at 814-865-2541.
Contacts: Kim Dionis kdionis@psu.edu 814-863-2703 814-865-1068 fax