Harvest Season Through The Ages
Growing up on a farm in Idaho in the 40’s and 50’s I really thought I had it tough. Driving the tractor, topping sugar beets, picking string beans, picking up potatoes and oh yes milking cows. Then return to the house to back bread and cook for the farm workers. (What was I if not a farm worker.) I learned to work hard in the fields along side of my brothers and then learned how to cook, bake, clean and do laundry in the house with my mother. I really thought life was tough then. After that I grew up (sort of), married and raised a family of our own, with the help of electric appliances, store bought bread etc., in the big city. Then I knew life really was tough.
“Harvest Seasons of Ancient Israel
Various biblical laws and stories refer to ancient Israelite crops and harvests. It may therefore be helpful to have some general information about the harvests and their seasons. Major crops of the land are listed in Deuteronomy 8:8: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey.
The spring harvest
Various herbs and legumes were harvested in spring, but the most important spring crops were cereals: barley and wheat. A spring ritual took particular note of the cereals: Newly harvested grain could not be eaten until the first fruits of grain had been offered on the “day after the Sabbath” of the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:9-1, 14). Pentecost, near the end of the grain harvest, included grain and loaf offerings (verses 16-17). Pentecost was also called “the Feast of Harvest” (Exodus 23:16).
Although barley and wheat were both planted in the autumn, barley matured faster and would be harvested sooner. The first fruits of grain offered during the Festival of Unleavened Bread would have been barley. “In the early stages of the Israelite settlement the most important cereal was barley…because of the necessity to settle fringe areas and barley’s tolerance of harsh conditions” (Oded Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 1987, page 7).
“The amount and distribution of rainfall together with soil conditions limit the area in Eretz-Israel where wheat is cultivated to the coastal valleys, the Valley of Jezreel, the Upper Jordan Valley, and the Beth-shan Valley. [The Israelites did not conquer these areas at first (Judges 1:19).] In the northern Negev, wheat does well only in rainy years, which are not frequent” (page 89).
“Wheat ripens later than barley and, according to the Gezer Manual, was harvested during the sixth agricultural season, yrh qsr wkl (end of April to end of May)” (page 88; also see the chart on page 37 of Borowski’s book, reproduced below).
“Where the climate is warmer, as in the Shephelah and the Jordan Valley, crops mature earlier than in regions where the climate is cool, as in the Judean hill-country and the Galilee” (page 57). In Galilee, for example, part of the grain harvest would be completed after Pentecost, especially in years in which Pentecost came as early as mid-May. Even though all the crop might not be harvested by Pentecost, Pentecost celebrated the entire grain harvest, including the small amount of grain to be harvested shortly after the festival.
The summer harvest
After Pentecost, most of the harvest was fruit: grapes, olives, dates, figs, pomegranates and numerous fruits, seeds and vegetables of less importance.
Deuteronomy 11:10-11 contrasts Egypt’s irrigated vegetable gardens with Canaan’s hilly terrain and seasonal rains, implying that vegetables were less common in Canaan. Proverbs 15:17 indicates that vegetables were among the least-esteemed foods. The Bible has few references to gardens, cultivated vegetables and wild plants. “The small number of references to vegetables and the low regard in which vegetables were held suggest very strongly that vegetables…did not constitute an important part of the Iron Age diet in Eretz-Israel” (page 139).
Now let’s look at the major crops after Pentecost. Grapes were the first major crop to ripen: “In a good year, when the [grain] yield was great, threshing and grape picking overlapped” (page 62). That would be in June, technically in spring, since summer doesn’t officially start until the solstice, about June 22.
The importance of grapes and olives is illustrated by the fact that the Essenes had wine and oil firstfruits festivals similar to the biblical firstfruits offering for grain. These festivals also indicate the relative timing of these crops. The new wine festival came 50 days or seven weeks after Pentecost. Until new wine was offered, no one could drink any of the new juice (Temple Scroll, columns 19-21). Fourteen weeks after Pentecost, shortly before the Feast of Trumpets, was the new olive oil festival. No one could use new olives until some oil had been offered (columns 21-22).
The grape harvest was usually completed before Tabernacles, but most of the olive harvest came after the autumn Holy Days.
In ancient Israel the primary harvest season extended from April to November. This harvest period might be subdivided into three seasons and three major crops: the spring grain harvest, the summer grape harvest and the autumn olive harvest. These harvests have a rough, rather than a precise, correspondence with the festivals. Some grain might be harvested after Pentecost, threshing and grape-picking might overlap, and the olive harvest came both before and after the Festival of Tabernacles.
Relative importance
Which harvest was larger and more important? In terms of dietary calories, the spring grain harvest was most important. Borowski calls barley and wheat “the main food staple of the ancient Israelite” (page 57). E.P. Sanders offers a more detailed estimate: “Grain constituted over fifty percent of the average person’s total caloric intake, followed by legumes (e.g. lentils), olive oil, and fruit, especially dried figs” (Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE, 1992, page 129).
Since fruit has a higher moisture content than grain does, the fruit harvests may have been somewhat larger in bulk and weight. Most of the dietary importance of the fruit harvest came after Tabernacles, when olive oil was produced.
The autumn festivals came after the summer harvest, a less-important harvest. But the fall festivals were associated with greater rejoicing (Deuteronomy 16:13-15). Why the theme of rejoicing? The conclusion of a wine harvest is an appropriate time for festivities. But another reason may be that Tabernacles celebrated both the spring harvest and the summer harvest. Note the mention of both grain and grapes in verse 13: “Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.”
Michael Morrison, 1992, 1999
Harvest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Woman manually harvesting grain in Thirumayam, India. This custom was the norm until the Industrial Revolution, with the introduction of mechanical equipment.
In agriculture, the harvest is the processes of gathering mature crops from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper.[1] The harvest marks the end of the growing season, or the growing cycle for a particular crop, and this is the focus of seasonal celebrations of many religions. On smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large, mechanized farms, harvesting utilizes the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, like the combine harvester. Harvesting in general usage includes an immediate post-harvest handling, all of the actions taken immediately after removing the crop—cooling, sorting, cleaning, packing—up to the point of further on-farm processing, or shipping to the wholesale or consumer market.
Contents
Important factors
Harvest timing is a critical decision, that balances the likely weather conditions with the degree of crop maturity. Weather conditions such as frost, rain (resulting in a “wet harvest”),[2] and unseasonably warm or cold periods can affect yield and quality. An earlier harvest date may avoid damaging conditions, but result in poorer yield and quality. Delaying harvest may result in a better harvest, but increases the risk of weather problems. Timing of the harvest often amounts to a significant gamble.
Etymology
Australians harvest the wheat circa 1900
Before the 16th century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the Autumn season: in fact the word comes from old English hærfest, which meant Autumn (the German word Herbst has the same origin and still means Autumn). The word is a compound word (hær + fest) and its first part has Indo-European roots in *kerp meaning to gather, pluck, harvest. Compare it with the Latin verb carpere meaning to cut, divide, pluck (Carpe diem). So hærfest indicated originally the joyful celebration of finally being possible to gather the mature crops; it extended afterwards its meaning to the all period beginning with the harvest (autumn). Recall also the expression harvest moon which is recorded since 1706 and indicates the full moon within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox (21 of September). However, as more people gradually moved from working the land to living in towns (especially those who were literate), the word came to refer to the actual activity of reaping, rather than the time of year, and the terms Fall and Autumn began to replace it in the latter sense.[3]
Other uses
The word harvest commonly refers to grain and produce, but also has other uses. In addition to fish and timber, the term harvest is also used in reference to harvesting grapes for wine. Within the context of irrigation, water harvesting refers to the collection and run-off of rainwater for agricultural or domestic uses. Instead of harvest, the term exploit is also used, as in exploiting fisheries or water resources. Energy harvesting is the process by which energy (such as solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients and kinetic energy) is captured and stored. Body harvesting, or cadaver harvesting, is the process of collecting and preparing cadavers for anatomical study. In a similar sense, organ harvesting is the removal of tissues or organs from a donor for purposes of transplanting.
Agriculture and Farm Innovations
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Farming and farm machinery have continued to evolve. The threshing machine has given way to the combine, usually a self-propelled unit that either picks up windrowed grain or cuts and threshes it in one step. The grain binder has been replaced by the swather which cuts the grain and lays it on the ground in windrows, allowing it to dry before being harvested by a combine. Plows are not used nearly as extensively as before, due in large part to the popularity of minimum tillage to reduce soil erosion and conserve moisture. The disk harrow today is more often used after harvesting to cut up the grain stubble left in the field. Although seed drills are still used, the air seeder is becoming more popular with farmers. Today’s farm machinery allows farmers to cultivate many more acres of land than the machines of yesterday.”
