Age-old farming tools provide a rich harvest
Print Edition
IN Xuhang Township’s Qianqiao Village, the former public warehouse stands at the north part of the small village square, its gate open during the day.
A wooden sign on the door of the warehouse reads: Jiangnan Farm Tool Exhibition and Qianqiao Village Youth Patriotic Education Base.
The warehouse is about 60 square meters long with a wooden roof and walls made from fire-hardened mud bricks stuck together with clay.
The exhibition features more than 200 old farm tools, such as a stone mortar and pestle, a wheat grinder and a device for buffalo to drive a water wheel.
All these items belong to 77-year-old villager Shen Zhihao.
Eight years ago, retiree Shen got the idea of collecting old farming tools.
“Though finding these old tools is very difficult, I believed that I could do it,” he said.
With this self-belief, Shen, who has suffered from diabetes for 15 years, began amassing his collection of about 220 old farming implements.
The most prominent item in the warehouse is a restored buffalo power device used to drive water wheels.
It features a mushroom-shaped roof covered with hay, under which is a large wheel that was rotated by buffalo when it was in use.
The device features an ancient mechanism, and Shen collected its parts from four households. He found the wheel itself first, paying 1,800 yuan (US$ 290) for it.
Another highlight is the heavy mortar, which Shen had to bring home on a moped.
At the end of last year, the exhibition first opened to the public at the warehouse.
Being around these age-old farming tools made him recall the old days, said Wu Guangyao, a retired teacher from Xiaomiao Village.
Seeing a spinning wheel again after scores of year, Heqiao villager Zhang Caichang told friends that during the old days, Zhang and her brothers and sisters would study by the light of a kerosene lamp. Meanwhile, their grandmother relied on her hearing while working on her spinning wheel, as the light was too dim and her eyesight too poor.
Xuhang plans to merge Caowang Primary School’s small farm tool exhibition and Shen’s collection and use the campus to display these precious historic antiques.
So it seems that having been hidden away in sheds and barns, Shen’s collection will now be in the public eye for years to come.
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