Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

Spreading manure is an excellent task for a team. They learn to stand as the spreader is loaded, the machine makes desensitizing noise as it operates, and the load lightens during the drive. Photo by Caleb Courteau

The hay mower is an effective implement but much less satisfying than the rake. Because the horses have to supply a steady input of energy for the cutting action besides pulling the implement through the field, usually during hot weather, it’s an exhausting job and rough on the horses. So it’s very important that the sickle be kept sharp and the cutter bar in top condition. And rest your horses frequently! Since the tongue is very heavy on the horses’ necks (unless the mower is of the tricycle type) some considerate teamsters used to keep a short stick hinged to the tongue, handy there to hold up the weight during resting periods. With all its problems, the horse mower was infinitely superior to the human-powered scythe, and it opened up vast areas to hay production in the American West. I confess, though, that I never could get one to work well in some hays, like rank,

tough fescue that had been heavily fertilized. The stone boat, or sled, is one of the best imple ments for the horse, effective in moving rocks, bales of hay or any heavy object for short distances. It is low and easy to load, with the added advantage that it can be easily improvised and built out of materials found on almost any farm. In the northern states, the bobsled, with two “bunks” which articulate in the middle exactly like the old wooden wagon, was, and is, a wonderful device for moving heavy loads with ease over snow packed roads and drifted fields. There is no smoother ride on earth than sitting atop a load of loose hay on a bobsled, heading home across the fields along an ice-glazed trail. The last dray team I saw working in the U.S. was in 1948, delivering coal with a bobsled in a town in North Dakota.

Rural Heritage

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