In modern farming, the hard part is not sitting in the tractor working on the fields. The struggle comes from running a business, taking care of financials and keeping the tractors running and cash flow positive in a very competitive, globalized environment which pays very badly.
I have done farm hand work the modern way with tractors and the old timey way with horses. If it paid as well and was as stable as computer work in the office, I'd trade my job for either.
Farm work with tractors is sweaty, dirty, solitary job but it's not particularly physically taxing. You don't need much strength most of the time, but there are times when you need to lift heavy things etc. But at the end of the day you see the field is plowed and you get to work with big machines (fun!).
Farm work with horses is sweatier and dirtier but it's a community effort with typically a minimum of two people and one horse. In the olden days it would have been a whole family group working together to put food on the table. This kind of work is very tough physically but is very rewarding and relaxing mentally.
And sitting on my ass all day in the office is also quite physically demanding in the sense that I must hit the gym regularly after work or my health will suffer.
You mention textile work, for example. Spinning yarn was an activity almost everyone took a part in. People back then carried a spool of yarn and a bunch of fibers in their pockets and spun it in their idle time, e.g. while sitting together with their family at night. It's not too dissimilar to playing with a yo-yo, or doing knitting or other activities people enjoy even today.
Pre-industrial life was not as tough as modern people think. There were many positive sides to a simpler lifestyle back then. These days we're well fed and have good health care but we work ourselves to death for no obvious reason.
I was talking more about the amount of work, than how hard it is (and it's hard, especially in summer). On the farm you start very early in the morning and there's always something that needs to be taken care of, practically until you go to bed. Now, it probably depends also on the size of the farm, number of people, type of crops and how good the land is, what animals do you keep, machines, etc. My experience is that there was very little free time of just doing nothing. Pace is slower, so you have a lot of small time-outs in between the chores, but very rarely you're like: "OK, we did everything for today, I'm off to binge watch Netflix for the rest of the day" (except in winters when days are shorter, then you get some tv time). That was my experience, at least.
I have done farm hand work the modern way with tractors and the old timey way with horses. If it paid as well and was as stable as computer work in the office, I'd trade my job for either.
Farm work with tractors is sweaty, dirty, solitary job but it's not particularly physically taxing. You don't need much strength most of the time, but there are times when you need to lift heavy things etc. But at the end of the day you see the field is plowed and you get to work with big machines (fun!).
Farm work with horses is sweatier and dirtier but it's a community effort with typically a minimum of two people and one horse. In the olden days it would have been a whole family group working together to put food on the table. This kind of work is very tough physically but is very rewarding and relaxing mentally.
And sitting on my ass all day in the office is also quite physically demanding in the sense that I must hit the gym regularly after work or my health will suffer.
You mention textile work, for example. Spinning yarn was an activity almost everyone took a part in. People back then carried a spool of yarn and a bunch of fibers in their pockets and spun it in their idle time, e.g. while sitting together with their family at night. It's not too dissimilar to playing with a yo-yo, or doing knitting or other activities people enjoy even today.
Pre-industrial life was not as tough as modern people think. There were many positive sides to a simpler lifestyle back then. These days we're well fed and have good health care but we work ourselves to death for no obvious reason.