The Suffolk Punch

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Is it bad for the horses? "It can be, if you overdo it," says Rutledge. "Or if you don't have the right equipment." Each of his horses has its own collar, painstakingly fitted to produce the least friction on the animal's neck and shoulders—the same collar for pulling or farm work. No antiquarian, he uses specially designed nylon and leather harnesses. "Leather for where you need the harness to have a memory; nylon for give and strength." The nylon stretches, relieving the sudden shock in pulling, and it lasts longer.

Once, a woman came up to Rutledge to scold him for mistreating his horses by entering them in a pulling contest. Feisty as ever, he put his fingers in a circle on the horse's haunch. "See that?" he asked. "That's about the size of an Alpo dog food can. That's where this horse would be if he weren't out here. Do you suppose he'd rather be out here pulling and entertaining people or in the Alpo can?" Rutledge has pulled out of contests when he thought the conditions were wrong. "I don't ever want to hurt these animals." One of his Suffolks, obtained from another breeder, has a bobbed tail, a cosmetic custom that evidently makes the horses haunches look larger and more powerful. "That's just plain stupid cruelty," he explains in anger. "That's the end of their spinal column those (bleep) people cut off."

Rutledge speaks often of natural law, of every natural thing having a purpose, but has few good words to say about flies; he knows a horse without a tail suffers worse from them. He points upward to some turkey vultures circling an adjoining pasture. "See them? They eat carrion, clean up the place, sure, but did you know that anthrax bacillus can't make it through their digestive system? Everything has its role."  

Weeds are a case in point. "You can't get rid of them, you can only control them." And because horses create the least amount of soil compaction, they are, to Rutledge, the best way to mechanically control weeds. Indeed, horses are a crucial aspect of all of those parts of the cycle that involve the central resource, topsoil. And Rutledge is a topsoil freak—for the very good reason that there isn't much of it on Copper Hill. Traditional moldboard plows—even though fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson invented them—are anathema, but the relatively gentle effects of cultivating fields with horses preserve topsoil against erosion.

It takes about 50 years to create an inch of topsoil, he points out, and weeds themselves play an important role—if the farmer adapts to their cycles. In the first place, some—like morning-glory and ragweed—are actually good for corn. But they also demand crop rotation. The first year, Rutledge says, after a field is freshly tilled from sod, you can get away with one cultivation. The second year you need to cultivate twice; the third, three times. Then the handwriting is on the wall. Let it go fallow. "Those weeds will grow up and down, and their roots will help bring nutrients up to the topsoil." And in the natural course of crop rotation, planting a field to pasture not only helps the land, but it grows the fuel needed for the horses.

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IMPLEMENTS FOR FARMING WITH HORSES AND MULES'

Sam Moore

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