It’s actually spring weather, finally it seems after two April snow storms that affectively got me thinking about ordering more firewood.  But it is dry enough now to get the tractors going on the fields again, the quick pace of the diesel engines wiring back and forth is a positive sound to hear, it’s the sound of work being done and of an optimism that farming this year is going to be worth the extra effort we all put into it at Scotch Mountain.  When I think about it, it’s a new sound, or a relatively new sound, that being the engines and all.  I was prompted to think about this after Bill Batty, our senior curmudgeon farmer, tossed me the Spring issue of the Draft Horse Journal, and loudly said, “you want to see what’s wrong with the world… Read page 219”.  I intently turned through the pages to 219 and giggled as I always do when I sense Bill has an apocalyptic notion.

            The article I was to find was entitled, Bailouts vs. Bales In by Gene Logsdon, a well known economic critic and farmer in Ohio.  He details how after World War 1, when draft horses were in short supply, auto manufacturers jumped on the tractor bandwagon and prophesized the great piston contraptions would save the world from hunger and along with automobiles be the economic salvation for America.  Henry Ford even went as far as to spitefully campaign against draft horses and of farming in general, supposedly his intentions were to liberate masses of us from hard labour on the land.  Because of the short supply of horses due to the war his Fordson Tractor was cheaper than a team of good drafts; intentions made clear … But that was then. 

The reality we have now is that new tractors, at least a model that you can produce a lot of food with to pay for it is worth about $120,000, and if you’re a serious farmer (serious about efficiency), you need two of them at least.  Then you need to add on 15 to 60 thousand dollars per implement and you’ll need at least 4 of those that have all the gizmo’s to work with the tractor.  In farming, that means you’re going to have to borrow money unless you’re made of it.  It also means, that every other farmer doing the same thing is going to be producing a lot of food, invariably over producing and at least in local channels where farmers’ products begin their life in the distribution system they will be sold off cheaply, of course not at consumer level… God forbid we all be able to afford good food.  Farmers in a conventional reality it seems are destined to be at the whim of banks and greater powers.

So what a turn of events it seems, that now the mighty automakers are begging for a bailout, a cash infusion so that cars may continue to roll off the assemble lines but not necessarily into driveways.  The great banks of the world aren’t up for the challenge either, they were too busy funding lifestyles instead of a way of life.  In all of this, productive people such as farmers can’t find a bank willing to help.  Logsdon does point out in his article that out of all the banks in the U.S., one is growing, in fact it’s having a banner year.  Homegrown Heritage Bank in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, it’s the only bank in the world to have drive through windows to accommodate horse and buggy teams, and as you’re rightly suspecting, its clientele are mostly Amish.  It seems that in the under appreciated agrarian lifestyle that some of us laugh at today we find a valuable lesson.  The Amish are expanding their farms, they are profitable, and they are doing it all with draft horse teams.  Despite the obvious flaw in the formula for most of us, the Amish have lots of free labour, they are able to profit whilst using the “less efficient” horse team.  This all begs me to wonder, why then are we so captured, or bonded to the tractor?  Bill always curses his Massey 390, he curses the Duetz too, in fact he curses all the bits of machinery in the yard, and it seems every week he or his son Frank are repairing something.  The independence that draft horses can afford seems eerily present around him.

            Bill told me once that the Batty’s used horse teams into the 50’s; great big Clydesdales until he was in his early teens.  I can see the evidence in the barn, covered in cobwebs hanging in the old milk house is enough gear for an eight horse team.  The Batty’s didn’t just use them for field work, they bred them too.  And because they were of a stock that was meant to be hardier than handsome they ended up being gorgeous.  So much so that Budweiser eventually ended up purchasing the family’s Clydesdale sire, the genetics of whom can be traced back in all sorts of prized “show” teams to this day.  I don’t know why the Batty’s switched to tractors, to ask now they can’t tell me either.  You start to wonder, what would the world be like if we just produced bales of hay for more horses, rather than gobs of cash for cars that will have no home, or tractors that will still cost the farmer the value of his or her house?

            Perhaps instead of financing an industry that has been around for less than a century, it would be better to support the basis of all economy, in essence our ability to feed ourselves as a country, and keep our citizens productive in the advancement all things advanced.  Farmers start that very important chain of events, and they sustain it.  And our draft horses used to sustain us in that pursuit.  The silly idea of an agrarian society now sounds more appealing than ever.  It worked for thousands of years really, and it is appealing just because it got us to where we could afford to make all sorts of these modern mistakes.  Nostalgia aside, going back to that fork in the road under different circumstances is something I would love to do.

James McIntosh is Director of Operations for Scotch Mountain Meats and has a 100 acre organic farm he is working to one day be able to produce on.