Now is a time of exciting new developments for live animal power. As the numbers of adherents to this way of life grow, ecologically minded farmers in their fields are developing efficient horse-drawn systems, and equipment manufacturers in small shops all across North America and Europe are coming forth with new innovations in ground-drive technology that have us poised on the cusp of another agricultural revolution--with working horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen at the heart of it. --Publisher.
The New Horse-Powered Farm is the first book of its kind, offering wisdom and techniques for using horse power on the small farm or homestead. It sets the stage for incorporating draft power on the farm by presenting necessary information for experienced and novice teamsters alike, including getting started with workhorses; the merits of different draft breeds; various training systems for the horse and teamster; haying with horses, seeding crops, and raising small grains; in-depth coverage of tools and systems; and managing a woodlot, farm economics, education, agritourism, and more. It's a must-have resource for any farmer, homesteader, or teamster seeking to work with draft power in a closed-loop farming system.
Authored by the a world recognized expert on the subject; here in stories and pictures is the authoritative, modern-day, examination of the teamster's craft and the world of horse farming. Profusely illustrated with hundreds of color photographs explaining and depicting the horse in harness and at work.
In 1910, when Olaf F. Larson was born to tenant livestock and tobacco farmers in Rock County, Wisconsin, the original barn still stood on the property. It was filled with artifacts of an earlier time—an ox yoke, a grain cradle, a scythe used to cut hay by hand. But Larson came of age in a brave new world of modern inventions—tractors, trucks, combines, airplanes—that would change farming and rural life forever. When Horses Pulled the Plow is Larson’s account of that rural life in the early twentieth century. He weaves invaluable historical details—including descriptions of farm equipment, crops, and livestock—with wry tales about his family, neighbors, and the one-room schoolhouse he attended, revealing the texture of everyday life in the rural Midwest almost a century ago. This memoir, written by Larson in his ninth decade, provides a wealth of details recalled from an earlier era and an illuminating read for anyone with their own memories of growing up on a farm.
Small Farmer's Journal is after a new view of involvement, ownership, craftsmanship, and the understandable/mysterious seeds of magic. They also seek the craft of good farming and the faith that comes of thankful farming. Small Farmer's Journal wants to be defenders and agents of and for good farming and they realize that they are a small endeavor with small consequences. Work Horse Handbook has become a classic and the standard reference. This popular, highly regarded text is filled with current information and hundreds of photographs and drawings. It is a sensitive and intelligent examination of the craft of the teamster. From care and feeding through hitching and driving, every aspect is covered. Find out for yourself why this book is considered by thousands of people to be the volume on working horses in harness.
Before crude oil and the combustion engine, the industrialized world relied on a different kind of power - the power of the horse. Horses in Society is the story of horse production in the United States, Britain, and Canada at the height of the species' usefulness, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century. Margaret E. Derry shows how horse breeding practices used during this period to heighten the value of the animals in the marketplace incorporated a intriguing cross section of influences, including Mendelism, eugenics, and Darwinism. Derry elucidates the increasingly complex horse world by looking at the international trade in army horses, the regulations put in place by different countries to enforce better horse breeding, and general aspects of the dynamics of the horse market. Because it is a story of how certain groups attempted to control the market for horses, by protecting their breeding activities or 'patenting' their work, Horses in Society provides valuable background information to the rapidly developing present-day problem of biological ownership. Derry's fascinating study is also a story of the evolution of animal medicine and humanitarian movements, and of international relations, particularly between Canada and the United States.
Small Farmer's Journal is after a new view of involvement, ownership, craftsmanship, and the understandable/mysterious seeds of magic. They also seek the craft of good farming and the faith that comes of thankful farming. Small Farmer's Journal wants to be defenders and agents of and for good farming and they realize that they are a small endeavor with small consequences.A practical and comprehensive reference text covering all aspects of haymaking with horses and mules in harness. Offering in-depth information on mowers, rakes, hayloaders, buckrakes, stackers, tracks, and trollies for barns, hay fork systems, balers, wagons, feed sleds, and forecart adaptations. Haying with Horses covers the building of loose hay stacks and wagon loads as well as unloading systems and feeding systems.
