Ancient and Modern

This week's Firagost - Valls agricultural fair - had such juxtapositioned contrasts within about a hundred yards of each other, that we had to bring you the pictures:

Well, not quite as ancient as you might think. These carts are for carrying "portadores". A "portadora" is both the wooden open barrel used for harvesting grapes, and the measurement of what fitted in it. These carts only went out of use in Catalonia well within living memory. The vast majority of Catalan farmers couldn't afford modern machinery until relatively recently, and so for

example, Anton (who is only 63) grew up harvesting with "portadores" and ploughing the fields with a plough similar to the ones on the right - drawn by a mule. Indeed Anton was one of the first farmers in Aiguamúrcia to own a tractor in around 1960! Up until then, this kind of machinery was still standard.

A hundred yards from the above exhibition, was a trade show of somewhat newer technology...

Grape picking machines like this one, and stainless steel trailers are soon to be the norm. To use the picking machine, you need to have all your vineyards trellised, and there are still some question marks about whether it damages the grapes. Nonetheless, these are largely outweighed by the advantages of being able to pick the grapes very quickly - and hence time it to pick them at their peak.

Bearing in mind that these two images are only some 40 years apart, we felt it was worth sharing.