<Begin Segment 16>

DG: And can you tell me about, Lucy wants to hear more about farming with your horse. Because you said you had to use your horse to farm...

AS: The what?

DG: Farming with your horse. You had...

AS: Oh, yeah. I'm the only one, 'cause we couldn't buy nothing because we had to pay for the land. I think it was 1953, or somethin' like that that I, that was the last, I got rid of the horse then. I bought a tractor.

DG: So what did you use your horse for?

AS: Huh?

DG: What did the horse do for you? What type of work?

AS: I sold it to a Filipino, another Filipino was farming. But that... everybody else had tractors, I didn't. All, you know... Koura brothers, Terashitas, Hayashidas, all had tractors. They didn't have horses. But actually, there's nothing wrong with horse farming, I think it's better for the ground. That's my opinion.

DG: Why is that? Why is it better for the ground?

AS: Well, you don't pack the ground like, you know, with all that heavy tractor, and smash the ground down, make it muddy, and... I don't know.

DG: It was just one horse?

AS: We had two horses. Just, you know, for plowing and somethin', one horse wasn't enough. You gotta have two horses. But farming was different then, you know, before the war. We didn't have irrigation, right? So, before the farming, before the war farming was different than it is today. We got irrigation system and we'll water the berries and stuff. You know, just like your grandmother did, too. She... well before the war, we didn't have no thing like that, so we had to cultivate our strawberries every week to keep the moisture up on the root zone of the strawberries. If you didn't, it'd dry out a lot faster. But, if you cultivate, it brings the moisture up, you know, to a certain extent. So... that was my job, cultivating all the time behind the horse. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

DG: What, tell me what cultivating is specifically. What did the horse, and, was it just plowing, or...

AS: It was just cultivating... just scratch the top. What happens is, when you build a crust on there, it dries out faster than if you had a mulch on top to keep the moisture there. It dries out a lot faster. So, if you cultivate it, it doesn't dry out as fast. But, you know, if you don't get much rain, then you're hurt. But if you get rain, then you're in fine shape. You know what I mean? But, we don't do it that way now, today. We just water the...

DG: Well, what do you think is better for the land? To irrigate or to...

AS: I think cultivating just, just do it natural, natural way as possible, I think, but I don't know. I don't know, maybe I could be wrong on that part. I can't really tell you on that part of it.

DG: Is part of your land still cultivated or do you irrigate everything, now?

AS: Yeah, now it's all irrigated. Like my pumpkin. I wouldn't have no pumpkin today if I didn't irrigate. There's no way. It takes a lot of water.

DG: Yeah, my kids would be upset if you had no pumpkins. [Laughs]

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.