The Continental Army was at heart a farm army. Most of Washington's soldiers had been pulled from their fields and orchards by alarm bell or by enlistment bounty, and they would return to those same fields when their twelve-month terms expired. Militia musters timed themselves around planting and harvest because no town could afford to lose its young men in May or in October. Battles ran across actual farmland — Lexington Green, the North Bridge at Concord, the wheat fields at Brandywine, the rye field at Princeton, the apple orchard above the Saratoga ravines — and farmers along the line of march watched their fences pulled down for firewood and their livestock taken for the camp kettles. This thirteen-piece W. Britain set assembles the everyday tools of that agricultural life: scythe and sickle for cutting hay and grain, pitchforks for loading wagons, the winnowing tray and grain shovel for separating chaff after threshing, a stone boat sled for moving heavy weight across the fields, a wheelbarrow for smaller loads, and the pick and shovel that did the heavy ground work on both the farm and the field entrenchment. The set pairs naturally with the Regal Enterprises Minutemen set showing five Massachusetts farmers turned out for the Lexington alarm, the matte 1/30 W. Britain Colonial Militia standing loading musket figure in his town dress, and the Continental Line in hunting-shirt charging figure in the rifle frock Washington adopted from the frontier farmer-rifleman. Set Number: 53028 / W. Britain / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 13-piece set
