The Suffolk Punch

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As he tosses the large rocks on the sled, he summarizes his case for the workhorse. "They create fertilizer, not pollution. When you use horses, you get to keep what you made. You grow your own fuel. And a horse appreciates in value. They get better each year for nine years, then they level off till they're about 12. That's a lot different from a tractor. Soon as you get a tractor out of the sales room, you've lost money. And you don't ever get up in the morning and go into the barn and find a little baby tractor there, do you?"

He pauses and leans one elbow on a chestnut haunch. The sky begins to sprinkle lightly.

"These horses," he says. "They can be part of the job of stewardship. They'll leave this land better off than when I came here. We don't need any more mining of the soil. And they're one way of getting back to an old idea. It's called independence."

Back on the sled, Jason Rutledge and his young team set off toward the barn. He tells them what a good job they've done, and a visitor realizes another benefit Rutledge derives from his horses. Out in the fields, working in the quiet of his mountaintop— "playing with his horses," as his wife cheerfully puts it—he is never alone during the long day of the farmer.

Jake Page lives and writes in Waterford, Virginia. His latest project is a book about the Navajo, which will be published by Abrams.

PRACTICALITIES

Benefits—and drawbacks—of farming with horses.

Let's pull back from Jason Rutledge and consider the significance of this hillside scene. After all, as the saying goes, nostalgia and scenery make thin soup. Are Rutledge and his Suffolks an isolated agricultural anachronism? Or does the draft horse have a practical place on the farm today?

Bill Gibbons, 300 acres, Ontario: "I've got a small dairy—15 to 20 cows. I use two teams of Belgians to spread manure, haul maple syrup sap, do all the planting and rake, ted and haul my hay. I use a tractor to load the manure, bale the hay and do heavy field work like plowing and disking."

Pat Miller, 160 acres, Montana: "I raise horses and cattle, restore wagons and work an outside job at a lumberyard. I use Percherons whenever possible, most often to feed and harrow. If I didn't have an outside job, I could do it all with horses. In winter, I don't hardly start a tractor, but do all my stock feeding with horses."

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IMPLEMENTS FOR FARMING WITH HORSES AND MULES'

Sam Moore

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