A good two thirds of the agricultural area were used as arable land, the rest as permanent grassland for livestock farming. At almost 55 percent, crops accounted for the largest share of arable products, with undemanding rye dominating due to the often poor soil. Potatoes, turnips, fodder plants and pulses were also important. Especially on estates, distilleries provided important additional income.
Hay was made on the meadows, cattle and horses grazed mostly on the pastures and found optimal conditions here, which is why East Prussia was praised for both. This was the only place in Germany where the Ermländer horse, their own coldblood horse, and the Skudde, an old country sheep breed, was to be found.
The short, hot summers and long, snowy winters resulted in an extremely work-intensive season. Even in the 1930s, almost 50 percent of East Prussia's working population lived off agriculture, almost twice as much as the national.
Illustrations:
Exodus of the reapers, 1920s / 1930s
As from the 1930s, the grain harvest was often carried out with horse-drawn harvest binders. However, the increasingly rare image of the reapers with their scythes remained a popular motif that was later also used for tourist advertising purposes. In National Socialist Germany, the "borderland inhabitants" of the "Ostmark" were propagandistically exaggerated as being a hard and close to earth race of people.
Photo: Picture Archive East Prussia