Identifying Horse Drawn Farm Implements

This guide to the identification of old farm equipment has been assembled to help those who have grown up since the horse-to-tractor farming conversion identify the myriad of horse-powered farm implements still to be found. The identification process is simple and quick, and is based on the presence or absence of such readily recognizable features as wheels and teeth. Photographs and identifying features of essentially all of the types of equipment used in the United States during the early part of the twentieth century are included.

'Horse Drawn Farm Implements' encompasses the whole range of attempts to harness animal power on the land over the past century and a half in Britain and North America.

Interpreting Agriculture in Museums and Historic Sites orients readers to major themes in agriculture and techniques in education and interpretation that can help you develop humanities-based public programming that enhance agricultural literacy. Case studies illustrate the ways that local research can help you link your history organization to compelling local, national (even international) stories focused on the multidisciplinary topic. That ordinary plow, pitch fork, and butter paddle can provide the tangible evidence of the story worth telling, even if the farm land has disappeared into subdivisions and agriculture seems as remote as the nineteenth century. Other topics include discussion of alliances between rural tourism and community-supported agriculture, farmland conservation and stewardship, heritage breed and seed preservation efforts, and antique tractor clubs. Any of these can become indispensable partners to history organizations searching for a new interpretive theme to explore and new partners to engage.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Agricultural Revolution revolutionized farming. Centuries-old methods were discarded and widespread improvements were made. One of the most notable changes was the replacement of draught oxen with the more versatile special heavy breeds of horses. The Victorian ingenuity of the Industrial Revolution produced an enormous range of horse-drawn agricultural machinery. Fields had been ploughed by draught animals for centuries, but suddenly new horse-drawn machinery included not just ploughs, but grubbers, cultivators, harrows, rollers, drills, reapers, binders, root lifters, manure spreaders and rakes. This book describes and illustrates these machines, the horses and their harness, inventors and manufacturers and lists the places where the machines can be seen today.