The Use of Horses in Farming

Horses can be used for a variety of jobs in the farming industry. The most common use for horses tends to be plowing, however, they can also be used in dicing, harrowing, logging, corn planting, cultivating, moving, raking, and loading. My question is, is it practical to use horses today? Many would argue, that tractors and other farm equipment is more efficient and this is true to some extent. Some would also say that farm equipment tends to be more reliable. With those ideas in mind, it must also be stated that farm equipment repairs tend to be most costly than maintenance for a horse. Horses also are more eco-friendly and can be used for more than one specific task unlike farm equipment. Not being a farmer, it is hard to know which is easier to deal with but at least there are options for those in the farming industry.

The Combine

To be honest, I did not know what a combine was until I wrote this blog, although I have seen them quite often throughout my lifetime. A combine is the piece of farming equipment that threshes and cleans the gain. It is a rather large piece of equipment. I actually saw a combine last night on my way home from visiting the cranes in Jasper County that was working in the dark by the light of the moon and its very bright headlights. It made me think that a farmer’s work is never done. To continue, this piece of machinery was invented in the 1830’s (although not a high tech. as they are today). Before it was introduced, the grain had to be cut, stacked, collected, separated, and cleaned by hand and individually. With the introduction of the combine, the farmer’s work was greatly altered, since it could do up to three tasks at one time.

The Evolution of Tractors

There are many different types of tractors. The two mains types of tractors are wheeled tractors and crawlers. What is the difference you may ask? For starters, wheeled tractors replaced the horse and ox powered machines used for harvesting. For wheeled tractors, easy to see, the wheels were the main attraction. Being powered by something other than animals was an exciting step but it also presented a problem. How would they be powered at all? The first wheeled tractors were steam-driven. Eventually, the steam was replaced with gasoline. The next big change in the tractor industry would not occur until 1950 with the introduction of the crawlers also known as caterpillars. These tractors used continuously moving treads instead of wheels. Having treads instead of wheels helped tractors avoid being stuck in mud. The benefits of the crawlers lead to a dramatic increase in sales and even more changes in technology. Some tractors today even have four-wheel drive and are diesel powered.