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The ancient trades

 


The peasant's reality

 

Till the end of the 60’s, the village lived on a rural reality based on the little property, only a few families had big estates (“i particular”).

The tilling of the land, the only source of profit for the main part of the inhabitants, was done thanks to the use of oxen and horses. During the harvest time that is to say: the reaping time, the grape harvest, the haymaking and the corn harvest, there were also moments of aggregation. People tried to help each others as there was a great need of labour with a great sense of cooperation.

the harvest time at Villa Morbelli - 1948

 

       

"Amson" (the harvest time)

 

 

The threshing


The threshing foresaw that all the families were engaged for several days in helping each others. The threshing machine started its job in a farm and then moved to the following, day by day, from farm to farm; each member of the family played a special role around the machine. Finally, in the evening, men debated on the quality and quantity of the corn: “this one is the best, though that one is plentiful…”, “should it had not hailed…”. Soon after, the threshing machine left the village, leaving barns more or less full, haylofts full of hail and a lot of dust.

 

 

the hay time - The threshing machine



The broad bean harvest



The growing of broad beans, together with the hail, constituted the feed for the cattle during the winter season and, in the meanwhile, enriched the soil with organic elements.

 

The broad bean harvest

 

After the harvest, end of June, in the courtyards there was the drying up phase, then there was the period of threshing phase made with specific tools: “al tresc”, for example, was a farm tool made up by two sticks united by a string of leather. The peasants used it by holding one of the sticks and rotating the other which hit the pods still closed and attached to the plant, in a manner to free the plant from its seeds. At the end of the threshing time, with the “val”, they cleaned the seeds from the remaining of the pods.

 

 

The grape and maize harvest


Since September, men started putting in order again the basements. They washed the barrels, the tubs and the bins, these latest were loaded on barrows and tightly tied. They prepared the scissors, the tins, the stairs, the wine casks and everything which was necessary for these kind of activities. Peasants scanned the horizon hoping for the sun, then one morning they left. On the hillsides there was a great animation, families and friends were all involved in the event. Yet, only a few big farms could afford the recruiting of labour by paying them.

 

grape harvest on the hill ( "bric")
 

Teams of grape-gatherers sung and on the other side of the hill others answered. The grape harvest finished, in the courtyards arrived the maize harvested: the barrows unloaded lots of maize-cobs and in the evenings everybody had to (“snuvia la meglia”) to husk the maize. Everybody sat on the heaps of maize, chatted and in the meantime often sung and stripped the maize-cobs, that once cleaned were thrown near the wall of the house, where they stayed for a period in order to dry up: the wastes, constituted by leaves, formed in a corner big, soft cobs, and children could dive for the whole evening. The following day, the same thing would happen in another courtyard. The extended agricultural mechanisation arrived in the ‘60s: the ancient barrows were abandoned and they remain the only witnesses of this glorious past full of hard work.


 

The mining of cornerstones from the mines


The hill of the Colma has in its subsoil the cornerstone ("Pietra da Cantoni"), better (and improperly) known as "tuff": it is a fine grain, tender and friable marl and marly sandstone.

These marine rocks deposited, 15-20 millions years ago, at a relatively shallow sea depths. This sea occupied most of the Monferrato area; as a matter of fact, it is not difficult to find fossil shells or fish teeth in the blocks, used during the building up of the houses.

Many mines were opened; inside there the layer of "tuff" had a thickness of about 10 m and followed the outline of the hill; for centuries these mines supplied with building materials. The mines were formed by tunnels 5 m width , with a height of 5 m too. From the main gallery departed, perpendicularly, entry tunnels and other galleries which were parallel to the main one.


The galleries bays were 5 m width and between a digging out and the other there was another space left 5 m width too. The main purpose of this solution was for safety reasons: to avoid the collapsing of the gallery. Many digging outs, further to the extraction of the tuff, were filled in with recovery materials deriving from the squaring of the blocks.

 

wheel barrows out of a quarry

The dimensions of the blocks of squared "tuff", in vernacular named “canton”, were 50 cm x 25 cm x 15 cm, with a total weight of around 32 Kg.

They were used for the building up of houses and rural residences. The dimensions of the flat tiles (in vernacular, “pianeli”) were different, larger and higher but much thinner, with a weight of around 45Kg, used for the building up of ovens. 

 

Some mines are still visible, though by now neglected more than a half of a century ago.

Many were the professional quarrymen who worked in the digging out of the blocks of squared tuff, but many others were also the so called “seasonal workers” who worked in mines to provide for the needs of their families. These latest, in addition to the hard farm work they carried out this activity and, once mined and piled up, the "canton" were carried away with burrows dragged by horses.

More or less important mines were managed by the Angelino, Campagnola and Valleggia families.

quarrymen

 

the inner part of a quarry

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