In Périgord, the transport of agricultural loads was mainly carried by oxen with their yokes and by donkeys with their shoulder collars for the poorest. The agricultural cart used two-wheeled fodder carts, four-wheeled wagons, tipping wagons and cattle carts. The blue colour of the typical cattle cart was the result of the application of Prussian blue paint to protect the wood from wood-boring insects.
The modernization of agriculture replaced these means of transport by motor cultivators and tractors with their agricultural trailers, sometimes produced locally, such as the Simon de Mussidan trailers between 1920 and 1980.
Illustrations :
– Postcard of the bridge over the Isle on the road to Ribérac at the entrance to Mussidan with a dumper pulled by a pair of oxen tied with a horned yoke in the 1920s. (©Musée André Voulgre) 2014.9.182
– Postcard of the bridge over the Isle on the road to Ribérac at the entrance to Mussidan with a cart pulled by a donkey and a desatted dumper around 1920. (©Musée André Voulgre) 2014.9.182
– Photograph in front of an improvised butcher’s shop in Lagut at Saint Front de Pradoux with a cart harnessed to a donkey in 1898. (Photo André Rigaillaud, private collection)
– Photograph of a Simon cart and trailer in a Perigordine farm yard in the 1980s. (Photo Pierre Broussouloux ©Musée André Voulgre)
– Photographs of a trailer and a cattle trailer designed by the Simon company, which has been manufacturing carts and trailers since the beginning of the 20th century in Mussidan. (Private collection)