164 Fun Facts About Farm

A baby goat is called what?

A baby goat is a kid; the word comes from Old Norse kið. Adult females are does or nanny goats and males are bucks or billy goats.

Which farm animal is the main source of wool?

Wool is the most widely used animal fibre in the world and is usually harvested by shearing once a year.

A cow's stomach has how many compartments?

A cow's stomach has four compartments: rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum. The rumen hosts the microbes that break down grass, and cattle re-chew regurgitated cud.

An adult female sheep is called what?

An adult female sheep is a ewe; a male is a ram and a castrated male a wether. Meat from young sheep is lamb, from older animals mutton.

Pigs roll in mud mainly to do what?

Pigs cool down by wallowing because their sweat glands are limited to the snout, so evaporation from a mud coat does what sweat cannot; it also protects against sunburn.

The domestic chicken descends from which wild bird of Southeast Asia?

The domestic chicken descends from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) of Southeast Asia; the grey junglefowl later contributed the yellow-skin gene seen in some breeds.

A hen bred for egg laying can produce roughly how many eggs a year?

Modern laying hens produce over 300 eggs a year; wild junglefowl lay only about a dozen a season, and millennia of selective breeding did the rest.

Chickens with red earlobes generally lay eggs of what colour?

Red-earlobed breeds generally lay brown eggs and white-earlobed breeds lay white ones, though there is no nutritional difference between the two.

A young horse that is still nursing from its mother is sometimes called what?

A suckling becomes a weanling once it is weaned; foals can stand and run within hours of birth.

Horses are able to sleep in what unusual way?

Horses can sleep standing up: a 'stay apparatus' of tendons and ligaments locks their legs so they can flee predators quickly; they lie down only for short spells of deep sleep.

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and what?

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey (jack) and a female horse (mare); mules are almost always sterile because horse and donkey chromosome counts differ, 64 against 62.

Most domestic ducks descend from which wild species?

Most domestic ducks, from the Pekin to the Indian Runner, descend from the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos); the Muscovy duck of the Americas is the only other domesticated duck species.

On a turkey, what is the fleshy growth on top of the beak called?

The snood is the fleshy flap above a turkey's beak that lengthens and reddens when a male displays; the wattle is the growth hanging beneath the beak.

Baby turkeys are called what?

Baby turkeys are poults; turkeys were domesticated in central Mexico and reached Europe with the Spanish in the 16th century.

Alpacas were traditionally herded in the mountains of which continent?

Alpacas were herded in the Andes of South America, mainly in Peru and Bolivia; the two breeds, Suri and Huacaya, are told apart by straight locks versus crimped fleece.

The Holstein Friesian is the dominant breed in which kind of farming?

The Holstein Friesian is the world's dominant dairy breed; the black-and-white cattle give the highest milk yields of any breed and are farmed in more than 160 countries.

The shaggy, long-horned Highland breed of cattle comes from which country?

Its Gaelic name is Bò Ghàidhealach and it originated in the Highlands and Western Isles.

The Border Collie was bred mainly to do what job?

The Border Collie was bred to herd sheep; it comes from the Anglo-Scottish border country and descends from Britain's old working sheepdogs.

Merino sheep, prized for fine wool, were for centuries a strict monopoly of which country?

Smuggling the breed out was punishable by death; it later became the backbone of Australia's wool trade.

Which animal was the first to be domesticated by humans?

Dogs were established across Eurasia before any crop was cultivated or any other animal tamed.

Cattle were domesticated roughly 10,500 years ago from which wild ox?

Domestic cattle descend from the aurochs, a huge wild ox whose last animal died in Poland in 1627; the taming happened in central Anatolia, the Levant and western Iran.

Maize (corn) was first domesticated about 9,000 years ago in which modern country?

Maize was domesticated in the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from a wild grass called teosinte, whose tiny hard kernels look nothing like a modern cob.

Rice is the staple food of roughly what share of the world's population?

Rice is the staple food for over half of the world's people, mostly in Asia; China and India alone grow around half of the roughly 800 million tonnes harvested each year.

The potato was first domesticated in which region?

The potato was domesticated in the Andes: its single origin lies in southern Peru and north-west Bolivia, some 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Wheat was first cultivated around 9600 BC in which region?

Wheat was first cultivated in the Fertile Crescent, where einkorn and emmer were domesticated around 9600 BC in what is now south-east Turkey and the Levant.

The soybean is the world's most widely grown example of what kind of plant?

The soybean is a legume, the most widely grown in the world; Brazil and the United States lead production, and tofu, soy milk and edamame are traditional East Asian uses.

Cotton fibre grows inside a protective case around the seeds called what?

In nature the boll helps disperse the seeds; on the farm it is what the picker or the gin has to open.

Who invented the modern cotton gin in 1793?

Eli Whitney built his cotton gin in 1793 and patented it in 1794; it made short-staple cotton profitable, with grim consequences for the expansion of slavery.

John Deere made his name in 1837 by inventing the first commercially successful what?

John Deere, a Vermont blacksmith who moved to Illinois, made a polished steel plough in 1837 that shed the sticky prairie soil which clogged cast-iron ploughs.

Cyrus McCormick is credited as the inventor of which farm machine?

His company merged into International Harvester in 1902.

Joseph Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois, patented the modern form of what in 1874?

Joseph Glidden's 1874 patent for barbed wire made cheap fencing possible; it closed the open range and ended the era of the great cattle drives.

The combine harvester gets its name because it combines reaping, threshing and what?

Hiram Moore built and patented the first one in the United States in 1835.

John Froelich built an early gasoline-powered tractor in 1892 in which state?

He went on to found the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, later bought by John Deere.

A trench cut into the soil by a plough is called what?

The trench a plough cuts is a furrow, with the turned soil forming the ridge beside it; ploughs were pulled by oxen and later horses before tractors took over.

Farm silos are used to store fermented animal feed known as what?

Silage is grass or chopped maize fermented in the airless conditions of a silo; tower, bunker and bag silos are the three types in widespread use.

Which British agriculturist popularised the four-course crop rotation in the 18th century?

Charles 'Turnip' Townshend popularised the Norfolk four-course rotation of wheat, turnips, barley and clover; clover fixes nitrogen and turnips fed livestock through winter.

Norman Borlaug won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for developing what?

Norman Borlaug bred semi-dwarf, disease-resistant high-yield wheat in Mexico; between 1965 and 1970 wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, and he is often credited with saving a billion lives.

Pasteurisation is named after a French scientist whose 1860s research was about preserving what?

Louis Pasteur showed that gentle heat killed the microbes that spoiled wine; milk came later.

Butter is made by churning what?

Butter is made by churning cream until the fat globules clump and separate from the buttermilk; the finished product is roughly 80 percent butterfat.

In cheesemaking, the solid curds are pressed into cheese; the liquid they are separated from is called what?

Whey is the liquid left behind when curds are pressed into cheese; rennet is the enzyme that makes the milk protein casein set into curds in the first place.

A honeybee colony contains tens of thousands of workers, one queen, and a few thousand of what?

Drones are the males; workers and the queen are all female.

Worker honeybees tell each other where food is by doing what?

Foragers perform a waggle dance on the comb: the angle of the run encodes direction relative to the sun and its duration the distance; every honeybee species has a version.

The four Hs of the youth organisation 4-H stand for Head, Heart, Hands and what?

The fourth H is Health: the pledge reads 'my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living'. The programme dates to 1902.

The official colours of the National FFA Organization are national blue and what?

The FFA colours are national blue and corn gold, for the flag and a field of ripe corn; the group began in 1928 as the Future Farmers of America and dropped that name in 1988.

In Charlotte's Web, what kind of animal is Wilbur?

Charlotte the barn spider saves him by weaving 'Some Pig' and 'Terrific' into her web.

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the animals rename the estate after ousting which farmer?

The animals drive out the drunken Mr. Jones and rename Manor Farm 'Animal Farm'; Orwell called the 1945 novella a satirical tale against Stalin.

The Corn Palace, redecorated each year with murals made of corn, is in which US state?

The Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, first built in 1892, gets new exterior murals each year made from thousands of bushels of corn, grasses and grains.

The first Farm Aid concert in 1985 was organised by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and which other musician?

John Mellencamp joined Willie Nelson and Neil Young to organise the first Farm Aid after Bob Dylan's Live Aid remark about mortgaged family farms; the show drew 80,000 to Champaign, Illinois.

The Homestead Act, giving settlers land in the West, was signed by which president in 1862?

Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on 20 May 1862; it passed only once the Southern states had seceded and the congressmen who had blocked earlier versions had left.

The Dust Bowl's dust storms devastated farms on the American and Canadian prairies during which decade?

The 1930s drought came in three waves, in 1934, 1936 and 1939 to 1940, and ploughed-up topsoil simply blew away in the storms.

The modern concept of vertical farming was proposed in 1999 by a professor at which university?

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University, developed the idea with his students in 1999; the phrase itself dates to Gilbert Ellis Bailey's 1915 book.

Under US Department of Agriculture rules, the 'free range' label applies only to which animals?

The USDA defines 'free range' only for poultry, and the rule requires just that the birds have been allowed access to the outdoors; there is no equivalent standard for beef, pork or lamb.

Which Kansas railhead town was the original destination of the Chisholm Trail?

Abilene, Kansas, where Joseph McCoy built stockyards beside the Kansas Pacific railroad in 1867, was the Chisholm Trail's first railhead; later drives ended at Wichita and other Kansas towns.

What is a scarecrow placed in a field to do?

The classic form is a humanoid figure in old clothes, meant to keep crows and sparrows off newly sown seed.

Hay is grass or legumes that have been cut and what?

Hay is grass or legumes cut and dried to store as fodder; straw is different, being the leftover stems baled after grain has been threshed.

The earliest windmills, built around 700 to 900 AD to pump water, appeared in which region?

The earliest windmills were the vertical-axis panemones of Sistan in eastern Persia, used to grind grain and raise water; Europe's horizontal-axis windmill did not appear until the 12th century.

The word 'tractor' comes from a Latin verb meaning what?

'Tractor' comes from Latin trahere, 'to pull', the same root as 'traction' and 'tract'; it replaced the clumsier 'traction engine' around the turn of the 20th century.

Which engineer devised the three-point hitch found on most modern tractors?

Harry Ferguson patented the three-point hitch in 1926; it links implement and tractor so draught presses the rear wheels down, and his 1938 handshake deal with Henry Ford put it on the 9N tractor.

The word 'barn' comes from Old English words meaning a storehouse for which grain?

'Bere' meant barley and 'aern' meant a storage place.

Why were so many barns in the northern United States traditionally painted red?

Red iron-oxide paint was cheapest: ferric oxide was the most readily available pigment, and farmers mixed it with linseed oil to make an inexpensive weatherproof coating.

The word 'silo' comes from an Ancient Greek word for what?

'Silo' comes from the Greek siros, a pit for holding grain; the earliest silos were pits, and the tall tower form appeared only in the 1870s.

Domestic geese in Europe descend from which wild bird?

European domestic geese descend from the greylag goose (Anser anser), the large grey goose native to Europe; East Asian breeds descend instead from the swan goose.

What is a male goose called?

A male goose is a gander; he normally puts himself between any threat and his mate and goslings.

The bristly feathers hanging from a male turkey's chest are called what?

A male turkey's beard is a cluster of bristle-like feathers hanging from the chest; it keeps growing through life, and hunters use its length to gauge a tom's age.

Which turkey variety is the standard bird of large-scale commercial farms?

The Broad Breasted White is the standard commercial turkey; bred for so much breast meat that the birds cannot fly or mate naturally, so flocks are produced by artificial insemination.

Which of these farm animals is an omnivore rather than a herbivore?

The pig is an omnivore with a simple single-chambered stomach, so it digests fibrous hay poorly; rabbits, goats and horses are herbivores built to ferment plant matter.

Growing the same crop in the same field year after year is called what?

Monocropping, growing one crop in the same field year after year, depletes nutrients and lets crop-specific pests and weeds build up; rotation breaks those cycles.

Crops such as clover grown only to be ploughed back into the soil are called what?

Green manure is a crop such as clover, vetch or rye grown to be ploughed back in while still green, adding organic matter and, with legumes, nitrogen to the soil.

Under the medieval three-field system, what fraction of the land was planted each year?

Under the three-field system two thirds of the land was sown each year, one field with winter grain and one with spring crops, while the third lay fallow; it spread from the 9th century.

Irrigation has been part of agriculture for roughly how long?

Irrigation is over 5,000 years old: Sumerian farmers were channelling Tigris and Euphrates water onto fields well before 3000 BC. It is also used to protect crops from frost and to cool livestock.

Which watering method delivers water straight to the plant's root zone?

Drip irrigation trickles water through emitters straight to the root zone, so little is lost to evaporation or runoff; field efficiency is typically 80 to 90 percent when managed well.

Which irrigation system, patented by Frank Zybach in 1952, made watering large fields far easier?

The centre-pivot sprinkler, patented by farmer Frank Zybach in 1952, swings a long pipe in a circle around a central well; before it, farmers moved sprinkler pipes across fields by hand.

The N, P and K on a fertilizer bag stand for nitrogen, phosphorus and what?

K stands for potassium, from its Latin name kalium; the three numbers on a bag give the percentages of nitrogen, phosphate and potash.

Which industrial method for making ammonia led to a boom in nitrogen fertilizer use?

The Haber process, devised by Fritz Haber in 1909 and scaled up by Carl Bosch at BASF, makes ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen; it underpins almost all synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.

What did the Romans call their simple wheelless plough?

The aratrum was the Roman ard, a light wheelless plough that scratched the soil without turning it; its iron share was the vomer, and heavier wheeled ploughs came later in northern Europe.

Besides honey, which of these is a product beekeepers harvest from the hive?

Propolis, the resinous 'bee glue' that bees gather from tree buds to seal the hive, is scraped off and sold; beeswax, pollen and royal jelly are other hive products.

The traditional domed beehive made of coiled straw is called what?

A skep is the traditional domed hive of coiled straw; because the comb cannot be removed without destroying it, skeps gave way to movable-frame hives in the 19th century.

Which American developed the movable comb hive that transformed beekeeping in the 19th century?

Lorenzo Langstroth, a Pennsylvania clergyman, patented his movable-frame hive in 1852 after working out the 'bee space', the gap bees leave clear, so frames could be lifted out without tearing comb.

Finished honey usually has a water content of around what percentage?

Ripe honey is about 18 percent water, too dry for yeasts to ferment it; nectar starts at 70 to 80 percent water before bees fan it down and cap the cell.

A pack llama can carry roughly what share of its body weight?

A llama can carry 25 to 30 percent of its body weight for 8 to 13 kilometres; an overloaded llama lies down, spits or simply refuses to move.

The word 'llama' was adopted by European settlers from which language?

'Llama' came into Spanish from Quechua, the language of the Inca; llamas, alpacas, guanacos and vicuñas together make up the lamoids.

The donkey was domesticated 5,000 to 7,000 years ago on which continent?

It descends from the African wild ass.

What is an adult female donkey called?

An adult female donkey is a jenny; an adult male is a jack, and a foal is a young donkey of either sex.

The miniature donkey kept as a pet was originally bred on which Mediterranean islands?

The Miniature Mediterranean donkey, under 36 inches at the withers, was bred on Sardinia and Sicily to turn grain mills and carry loads; Americans began importing them in the 1920s.

What is the first milk produced after birth, rich in antibodies, called?

Colostrum, the thick yellowish first milk, is rich in antibodies that a newborn calf or lamb can absorb only in its first day or so, arming its immune system.

Roughly how many types of cheese exist worldwide?

Over a thousand named cheeses exist, grouped by moisture, age and milk type; France alone claims several hundred, and many more carry protected names across Europe.

'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' is traced back to which writer's 1706 opera?

The earliest known version, 'In the Fields in Frost and Snow', appears in Thomas d'Urfey's 1706 opera The Kingdom of the Birds; it later circulated as a folk song in Britain, Ireland and North America.

The Farmers' Almanac has been published continuously since which year?

The Farmers' Almanac first appeared in 1818 and is published in Lewiston, Maine; it is a different title from the older Old Farmer's Almanac, which dates to 1792.

Hydroponics grows plants without soil using what instead?

Hydroponics feeds plants with water-based nutrient solutions instead of soil; roots may be supported by an inert medium such as perlite or gravel.

Pumpkins belong to which plant genus?

Pumpkins are in the genus Cucurbita alongside squashes and courgettes; 'pumpkin' has no scientific definition and covers forms of several species, chiefly C. pepo, C. maxima and C. moschata.

The Araucana chicken from Chile is famous for laying eggs of what colour?

The Araucana, a rumpless, ear-tufted breed from Chile, carries a gene that deposits the pigment oocyanin in the shell, giving its eggs a blue colour inside and out.

A young female chicken under a year old is called what?

A pullet is a female chicken under a year old; a capon is a castrated male and a cockerel a young male.

What are the spiral bands that hold an egg yolk in place inside the white called?

The chalazae are the twisted cords of thick albumen that anchor the yolk inside the white; the name comes from the Greek word for a hailstone.

Which cereal is produced in the greatest weight worldwide each year?

Maize leads at well over a billion tonnes a year, ahead of wheat and rice at around 800 million tonnes each; much of the maize goes to animal feed and ethanol rather than food.

On a maize plant, what are the male, pollen-producing parts called?

The female flowers are the ears, which yield the kernels.

Soaking maize in an alkaline solution such as lime water is called what?

Nixtamalization, soaking maize in lime water, loosens the hulls and frees the grain's niacin; Mesoamerican cooks invented it, which is why corn-eating peoples there avoided pellagra.

Sheep are most likely descended from which wild animal?

Sheep descend from the Asiatic mouflon, domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, including the Zagros mountains of Iran, around 10,000 years ago; argali and urial were once suspected, but DNA points to the mouflon.

The Suffolk sheep breed is recognisable by what feature?

The Suffolk, bred in England from Southdown rams on Norfolk Horn ewes, has a bare black face and black legs; it is one of the most popular meat sire breeds.

The shepherd's hooked staff used to catch a sheep by the leg is called what?

A shepherd's crook is a long staff with a curved hook used to catch a sheep by the neck or hind leg; the bishop's crozier copies its shape.

Pigs were domesticated independently in China and in which other region?

The Near Eastern domestication happened around the Tigris Basin.

Which country is the world's largest pork producer?

China produces and eats close to half of the world's pork, far ahead of the European Union in second place and the United States in third.

A pig's snout is strengthened by a special bone and a disc of what at the tip?

The snout tip is a disc of tough cartilage backed by a small prenasal bone, making it both a digging tool and an acute sense organ.

Goats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago in which modern country?

Goats were domesticated in the Zagros mountains of western Iran, where bones from Ganj Dareh show managed herds 10,000 years ago; they descend from the wild bezoar goat.

A young female cow that has not yet had a calf is called what?

A heifer is a female that has not yet calved; once she has a calf she is a cow, and a steer is a castrated male raised for beef.

Which humped cattle arose from a separate domestication in the Indian subcontinent?

The zebu, with its shoulder hump and loose dewlap, was domesticated in the Indus region separately from European cattle; it thrives in India and tropical parts of Asia, America and Australia.

Texas Longhorn cattle descend from animals brought to the Americas by whom?

Their horns can span more than 8 feet from tip to tip.

The Hereford beef breed originated in a county of which country?

The Hereford was developed in Herefordshire, England, in the 18th century, with Benjamin Tomkins credited as a founder; its red body and white face are seen on beef farms in more than 50 countries.

Which beef breed, 3/8 Brahman and 5/8 Shorthorn, was developed on Texas's King Ranch?

Santa Gertrudis, named for the Spanish land grant at the heart of King Ranch, was bred from Brahman bulls on Shorthorn cows and in 1940 became the first beef breed recognised as developed in the United States.

Jersey cattle come from an island in which group?

Jersey cattle come from Jersey in the Channel Islands, which kept the breed pure by banning cattle imports for over a century; their milk is high in butterfat with a yellowish tinge.

The Leghorn chicken breed takes its name from the English name of which Italian port?

Livorno's English name is Leghorn; birds were shipped from the Tuscan port to North America from about 1828 and became the basis of the white-egg industry.

How many toes does a Silkie chicken have on each foot?

Silkies have five toes on each foot instead of the usual four, plus black skin and bones, blue earlobes and fur-like plumage.

The Berkshire pig, named for an English county, is normally what colour?

The Berkshire is black with six white points: the four feet, the snout and the tip of the tail.

The American Duroc pig ranges in colour from golden to what?

Durocs range from light gold to dark reddish-brown; the breed was formed in the 1800s from New York's Duroc and New Jersey's Jersey Red pigs and is prized for marbled meat.

Which English draught horse breed has held world records for the largest and tallest horse?

The Shire holds the records: Sampson, a Shire foaled in 1846, stood 21.25 hands and weighed about 1,500 kg; Shires towed canal barges and pulled brewers' drays.

The Percheron draft horse originated in which country?

The Percheron takes its name from Le Perche, a former province of north-west France south of Normandy, where the grey or black draught horse was bred.

An ox used for ploughing is usually what kind of animal?

Castration makes the animals docile and safer to work with.

Which large domesticated bovine originated in South and Southeast Asia?

The water buffalo was domesticated in South and Southeast Asia, where it pulls ploughs through rice paddies; it is also farmed in Italy for mozzarella, in the Balkans, Australia and the Americas.

The word 'yak' comes from which language?

In Tibetan the word refers only to the male; the female is a 'dri'.

In emus, which parent incubates the eggs?

The male emu incubates the clutch alone for about eight weeks, hardly eating or drinking and losing up to a third of his weight, then guards the chicks for months.

Ostriches can run at roughly what speed, making them the fastest birds on land?

An ostrich sprints at around 70 km/h and can hold 50 km/h for long stretches on its two-toed feet; it also lays the largest egg of any living bird.

The American cowboy tradition arose from the vaqueros of which region?

The vaquero tradition grew up on the cattle haciendas of northern Mexico after Spanish settlers brought Iberian herding methods; Anglo cowboys copied their saddles, roping and words such as lariat and rodeo.

A cowboy who specifically tends the horses used to work cattle is called what?

A wrangler looks after the remuda, the string of saddle horses the cowboys ride; a drover moves stock on the trail, and stockman is the Australian term for a cattle hand.

The word 'ranch' comes from which language?

'Ranch' comes from the Spanish rancho, a small farm or settlement, which entered English through the Mexican cattle country of the American Southwest.

Before mechanisation, threshing a bushel of wheat by hand took roughly how long?

Flailing grain by hand took roughly an hour per bushel, which is why threshing ate up about a quarter of farm labour in the late 18th century before threshing machines spread.

The 'snath' is the long handle of which farm tool?

The snath is the long, often curved wooden shaft of a scythe, fitted with one or two grips called nibs; the blade hangs from its lower end at a set angle.

A curved single-handed blade for reaping grain is called a sickle or, in Latin, what?

Falx is Latin for a sickle or pruning hook, the same word later applied to the curved Dacian war blade; flint sickles go back to the Neolithic.

A baler compresses hay or straw into what?

A baler packs hay or straw into bales, rectangular or cylindrical, bound with twine, strap or net wrap.

The 'barrow' in wheelbarrow comes from an Old English word for what?

The design splits the load's weight between the wheel and the operator.

How many tines does a pitchfork usually have?

A pitchfork usually has two to five long, slender tines for lifting loose hay or straw; the stockier garden fork, often confused with it, has four short thick tines for turning soil.

Automatic robotic milking systems have been commercially available since which decade?

They are also called voluntary milking systems because cows choose when to be milked.

A cream separator uses what force to split milk into cream and skimmed milk?

A cream separator spins milk so centrifugal force throws the heavier skimmed milk outward and lets the lighter cream collect at the centre; Gustaf de Laval patented the design in 1878.

Under French law, foie gras must be the liver of a duck or goose fattened by what method?

French law defines foie gras as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage, force-feeding through a tube; the name literally means 'fat liver'.

Most veal comes from young male calves of which type of cattle breed?

Most veal comes from male calves of dairy breeds, which cannot give milk and are not wanted for breeding; veal production adds value to them.

Mohair is made from the hair of which animal?

Mohair is the fleece of the Angora goat, shorn twice a year; it takes dye exceptionally well and is naturally flame-resistant.

The word 'cashmere' is an anglicisation of which region's name?

Cashmere is the old English spelling of Kashmir, whose goats' soft undercoat was woven into the shawls that were fashionable in Europe by the early 19th century.

Angora wool comes from the long coat of which animal?

Angora wool is the long, silky coat of the Angora rabbit, gathered by shearing, combing or plucking every few months; it is far finer and warmer than sheep's wool.

Large US beef feedlots are officially known by which acronym?

A large feedlot is a CAFO, a concentrated animal feeding operation, the EPA's term for a confined operation above set head counts; in Canada they are intensive livestock operations.

Textiles made from the flax plant are known as what?

Linen is woven from fibres in the stem of the flax plant; its seeds are flaxseed or linseed, and the oil is linseed oil.

Which cereal is much more tolerant of cold and poor soil than other grains?

Rye survives cold and poor, sandy soils that defeat wheat, which is why it is the bread grain of Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia.

Which tiny-grained cereal is fermented to make the Ethiopian flatbread injera?

Teff, a grass domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands, is fermented into the spongy sourdough flatbread injera; its grains are among the smallest of any cereal, under a millimetre across.

What is alfalfa called in Britain?

Lucerne is the British name for alfalfa, a deep-rooted perennial legume grown for grazing, hay and silage; the American name comes via Spanish from Arabic.

Rapeseed oil naturally contains which mildly toxic compound that canola varieties lack?

Erucic acid, a fatty acid linked to heart damage in animal studies, is high in traditional rapeseed oil; Canadian breeders produced low-erucic canola in the 1970s.

In the early 2020s, where did sunflower oil rank among the most used vegetable oils?

Sunflower oil ranked fourth, behind palm, soybean and rapeseed oil; Ukraine and Russia grew most of the crop, while confectionery sunflower seeds are eaten as a snack rather than pressed.

The peanut's species name hypogaea refers to what unusual habit?

Underground fruiting, or geocarpy, is rare among legumes.

Which part of the hop plant goes into beer?

The cone-like flowers of the female hop plant, rich in bitter resins and aromatic oils, go into beer; only female plants are grown for commercial production.

Maple syrup was first made by whom?

Indigenous peoples of the Northeast, such as the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe, were boiling maple sap into syrup long before Europeans arrived; trees are tapped in late winter as the sap rises.

Farmall tractors were made by which American company?

International Harvester launched the Farmall in 1924 as the first widely successful row-crop tractor; the name usually appeared as McCormick-Deering Farmall after IH's founding firms.

Massey Ferguson tractors are traditionally painted which colour?

Massey Ferguson tractors are red with grey, later silver, wheels and trim; John Deere's green and yellow and Ford's blue are the other instantly recognisable farm liveries.

The tractor maker Kubota is based in which Japanese city?

Kubota was founded in Osaka in 1890 as an iron foundry making cast-iron water pipes and keeps its headquarters in the city; it also makes engines and water-treatment equipment.

Ferruccio Lamborghini founded a tractor company in 1948 before he made what?

Ferruccio Lamborghini built tractors from war-surplus parts at Cento before founding Automobili Lamborghini in 1963 to make sports cars; Lamborghini Trattori joined the SAME group in 1973.

In rodeo, a mounted 'hazer' assists the competitor in which event?

In steer wrestling, or bulldogging, the hazer rides on the steer's far side to keep it running straight while the competitor leaps from his horse and wrestles it down by the horns.

Grant Wood said the woman in American Gothic was the farmer's what?

Wood said the pair were a farmer and his spinster daughter, not a couple; his sister Nan and his dentist Byron McKeeby posed in front of a Carpenter Gothic house in Eldon, Iowa.

Which sitcom starred Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as New Yorkers who move to a farm?

Green Acres ran on CBS from 1965 to 1971, with Eddie Albert as lawyer Oliver Douglas and Eva Gabor as Lisa in Hooterville; CBS cancelled it in its 1971 'rural purge'.

Chicken Run (2000) was the first feature-length film from which animation studio?

Chicken Run, released in 2000, was Aardman Animations' first feature film, directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park and co-produced with DreamWorks; the studio had made Wallace & Gromit shorts before it.

Shaun the Sheep first appeared in which 1995 Wallace & Gromit film?

Shaun debuted in A Close Shave (1995), where Wallace's Knit-O-Matic shears him; his own series premiered on CBBC in 2007.

The 1995 film Babe was adapted from which Dick King-Smith novel?

Babe was adapted from Dick King-Smith's 1983 novel The Sheep-Pig, published as Babe: The Gallant Pig in the US, and filmed in Robertson, New South Wales.

Who developed the 2016 farm life game Stardew Valley?

Eric Barone, working alone as ConcernedApe, spent about four years building Stardew Valley before its 2016 release; the player inherits a grandfather's run-down farm.

Which company launched the Facebook farming game FarmVille in 2009?

Zynga launched FarmVille on Facebook in June 2009 and it reached tens of millions of daily players within months; FarmVille 2 and 3 followed in 2012 and 2021.

Sugarcane is native to which island?

Saccharum officinarum was domesticated in New Guinea around 8,000 years ago by Papuan gardeners, and Austronesian voyagers spread it across the Pacific and into Asia.

The tomato belongs to the same plant family as tobacco, potatoes and what?

Tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco and chili peppers are all nightshades (Solanaceae), as is the aubergine; botanically the tomato's fruit is a berry, though it is eaten as a vegetable.

The number of US farmers' markets grew to roughly how many by 2013?

There were only 1,755 in 1994.

Cutting away the dung-caked wool around a sheep's rear is called what?

Dagging removes the soiled wool (dags) around a sheep's rear to prevent flystrike; docking shortens lambs' tails, drenching doses them against worms, and dipping treats the fleece for parasites.

Besides bacteria and fungi, which worms are the most numerous animals in compost?

Nematodes, mostly microscopic roundworms, outnumber every other animal in compost and soil, feeding on bacteria and fungi; compost is made by decomposing plant waste, food waste and manure.

The word 'bacon' comes from a Proto-Germanic word meaning what?

'Bacon' comes via Old French from a Germanic root meaning back meat, related to the word 'back'; it is usually cured from the belly or the leaner parts of the back.