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From: Olwyn Whitehouse <>
Subject: [ARMONTGO] MENA - Buddy Harbour gardens the old-fashioned way,with a horse and plow.
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:57:22 -0500

Horses, mules still reign for a few state growers
BY NANCY COLE
Posted on Monday, May 4, 2009
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Northwest Arkansas Edition
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/258822/
MENA - Buddy Harbour gardens the old-fashioned way, with a horse and plow.
"It's the only way to make a garden," he said as his 12-yearold horse,
Copper, pulled a plow through a small backyard plot near Mena. "My daddy
never owned a tractor," said Harbour, 78, who grew up near Norman in
Montgomery County. Instead, the family relied on three or four horses or
mules to cultivate and log their land, he said. Although Harbour left the
family farm to work in construction, he spent several years training draft
horses from Colorado to Massachusetts. Many of those Belgians, Clydesdales,
Percherons, Shires and Suffolks weighed as much as 2,000 pounds and stood as
high as 6 feet at the shoulder, he said. Copper, a Haflinger, weighs only
1,200 pounds and stands about 4 feet, 8 inches high. Smaller and more
versatile than traditional draft-horse breeds, Haflingers can be used for
pulling or riding. Harbour is one of only a handful of Arkansans who still
rely on animal power for farming or logging, said Steve Jones, equine
specialist with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

Historically, horses were used primarily in Arkansas for riding or pulling
buggies. Their population peaked in 1910 at more than 280,000, according to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After World War II, that number declined
rapidly as automobile use spread and as farmers and loggers mechanized their
operations. The horse population reached a low in 1969 of fewer than 25,000.
Since then, the number of horses and ponies has rebounded, reaching nearly
80,000, according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture. A more accurate number
is nearly double that figure, said Jones, citing a 2005 American Horse
Council survey that found 168,014 horses in Arkansas. The increasing numbers
are attributable to the growing popularity of recreational activities that
involve horses, such as trail rides, horse shows and rodeos, he said. Nearly
90,000 households in the state own more than 50 breeds of horses, including
quarter horses, thoroughbreds, draft horses, American paint horses,
Arabians, Morgans and Tennessee walking horses, Jones said. In addition to
horses, oxen were used occasionally in years past to skid logs out of
Arkansas' forests, but mules were the state's predominant draft animal for
nearly a century, he said.

A hybrid that results from the cross between a female horse and a male
donkey, the mule was well suited for work on cotton plantations, said Martin
Garrett, an economic historian who has studied their virtues as draft
animals. Compared with horses, mules are hardier, more sure-footed, less
temperamental, better able to withstand heat, eat less and tend to live
longer, Garrett said. Many people, like U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr.
of Little Rock, also believe mules are smarter. "Anything a horse can do, a
mule can do better," with only two exceptions, said Wilson, who owns three
riding mules, including a two-time world-champion gaited mule. "A horse can
run faster, and a horse can swim faster," he said. Arkansas' mule population
peaked in 1930 at more than 360,000, but fell to fewer than 1,000 by 1982.
According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, the state now is home to almost
8,000 mules, burros and donkeys.

Renewed interest in draft animals has developed nationwide since the 1970s,
said Joe Mischka, editor and publisher of Rural Heritage magazine.
Established in 1976, the bimonthly journal has about 11,000 subscribers, and
its Web site serves as a national marketplace for horse, mule and oxen
teams. Mischka credits the resurgent interest in working animals to several
factors including the Foxfire books, a series of 12 volumes published
between 1972 and 2004 that documented the vanishing culture of the southern
Appalachian Mountains, and Mother Earth News, a magazine about sustainable,
self-reliant living that was started in 1970. "People began returning to the
ways that their grandfathers used to do things, whether that's in gardening
or farming or logging," he said. ..."Horses help teach things that are
difficult to teach to young people these days, things like responsibility
and work ethic and stewardship," he said. ...


ARKANSAS DRAFT ANIMALS
In Arkansas, the state Department of Correction owns the largest number of
working horses and mules. The prison system uses about 300 riding horses
statewide, said Earl Pepper, who is responsible for all of the department's
cattle, horses and mules.
In addition, the Wrightsville Unit near Little Rock maintains four draft
teams of horses and two teams of mules that help feed the unit's 1,400 head
of beef cattle by pulling a wagon equipped with an automated "cube feeder"
through the pastures each winter, Pepper said. "They're a lot cheaper than a
tractor and, the way that unit is situated, they're still practical," he
said. The North Central Unit near Calico Rock in Izard County also has two
teams of draft mules used to pull wagons and haul debris, Pepper said. Few
horses and mules are used nowadays in Arkansas as draft animals, said Tommy
Warren of Fulton in Hempstead County, who trains both kinds of animals to
pull wagons and farm equipment. "It's a lot of fun, but there's not very
many folks that do it anymore," Warren said. "I'm 38 years old, and most of
the people that I train animals for, they're retired and they want to have
something like their grandfather had." Tim Wilf of Pleasant Plains in
Independence County also trains draft animals but specializes in riding
mules, which he sells to trail-ride operators in the western United States.
One of the last Arkansans to use horses and mules for logging was Johnnie
Sarlo of Mablevale in central Arkansas. Sarlo started in 1960 with only
animal power and then shifted in 1965 to machinery. "I always did miss
them," said Sarlo, referring to his animals, so in 1990 he bought a team of
draft horses. "I was just going to play with them," he said, but people
found out about the animals and started asking for them, especially when
erosion was a concern. Sarlo continued to log with horses and mules until
2004, when he and his teams retired.
Today, many horses and mules are little more than "pasture pets." Harbour,
the Mena gardener, admits that working with draft animals is a dying art.
During the early 1990s, he advertised in The Draft Horse Journal, a
quarterly magazine based in Waverly, Iowa, and ended up spending seven
months in Nevada City, Calif., training 19 young draft horses to pull
tourist carriages. Harbour also worked for Historic Washington State Park in
Hempstead County. "I went down there and spent a whole summer training a
girl how to drive a team," he said. Working with draft animals has provided
many fond memories, Harbour said, not to mention plentiful harvests of green
beans, potatoes and sweet corn.

______________________
Fence Posts in Montgomery Co. AR
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• [ARMONTGO] MENA - Buddy Harbour gardens the old-fashioned way,with a horse and plow. by Olwyn Whitehouse <>