Farmers Harrowing

The brown earth escapes into the atmosphere in plumes the size of a football field as big rig style tractors carve through the soil in preparation for a fresh batch of seedlings. The deep rumble of engines is a stark reminder of how distant our farming roots have sunk into history, and it speaks the truth about the mechanized industrial appetites of today's modernized society. In agriculture, a harrow is an implement for breaking up and smoothing out the surface of the soil. There are four general types of harrows: disc harrow, tine harrow, chain harrow and chain disk harrows. Harrows were originally drawn by draft animals, such as horses, mules, or oxen. In modern practice they are almost always tractor-mounted implements, either trailed after the tractor via a drawbar or mounted on the three-point hitch. All four harrow types can be used in one pass to prepare the soil for seeding. It is also common to use any combination of two harrows for a variety of tilling processes. Where harrowing provides a very fine tilth, or the soil is very light so that it might easily be wind-blown, a roller is often added as the last of the set. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=116506