7 Vintage Photos of Draft-Horse Farming
By Gabrielle Saulsbery
on December 17, 2015
A ride on the time machine back to old-school draft-horse farming.
Jack, 8, drives a horse rake in Western Massachuetts. August, 1915.
Photography Lewis Wickes Hine
A team of horses pull a sledge of logs in the Midwest (circa 1954).
National Archives and Records Administration, Central Plains Region. Courtesy of Wikimedia.
A team of horses work Scottsbluff Farmsteads, Nebraska (circa 1941).
Marion Post Walcott
A farmer waters a horse before the day’s work in Aroostook County, Maine (circa 1942).
John Collier
Jack, 8, drives a horse rake in Western Massachusetts (circa 1915). This photo was taken for a study on rural child labor.
Lewis Wickes Hines
Though some small farmers are turning back to the use of horse power today, the Amish never left it behind. A farmer works with his team, six strong (circa 1970s).
Carol Highsmith
Lastly, this team hauls the “largest load of logs ever hauled on sleighs by horses,” (at least up until the time of photograph) according to the Library of Congress (circa 1909).
L. H. Halverson
First photo courtesy of Wikimedia; all others courtesy of the Library of Congress
Animal cruelty. Smaller loads?