Foreword

In 1955 the number of workhorses hit bottom and predictions were made that soon draft horses would be seen
only at county fairs and in parades and petting zoos.
Then in 1964 Maurice and Jeaninne Telleen started
publishing The Draft Horse Journal combining the
expertise of the Plain farmers along with the passion of
the English horse people. Slowly the interest in horse
farming was renewed, and today it is thriving.
Not only did the Telleens do a great work renewing
a practical way of farming, there were, and are, many
others. This book is one of them. It is well written by a
working farmer.
Leading off from his first book, The New HorsePowered Farm, Stephen Leslie in this volume delves
deeper into showing how to operate a successful
horse-powered market garden. Horse-Powered Farming
for the 21st Century is an excellent guide for the serious horse-powered farmer who doesnt have extended
family showing him the way like I did. Leslie shows the
novice how to do it in a sensible, straightforward way.
As the subtitle says, it is a complete manual for successful market gardening with draft animals.
The author covers many topics that will help smallscale horse farmers immensely in learning how to work
their farms successfully and profitably. The topics cover
a broad rangeforecarts (the two-wheeled cart we
use to hitch a team to tractor-drawn equipment), soil
management, plows and plowing, the advantages of a
spring-tooth harrow over a disc (weed control), combination tools like the Pioneer Homesteader, mechanical
weed control, cover crops and harvesting, the economics of horse farming, and what a right livelihood is.
Leslie covers good plowing very well, which is a
passion of mine. Especially in an organic operation, it
is crucial to plow well. He points out the advantages of
the Kverneland plow bottom (made in Norway), which
has been adapted to horse-powered plows. We have
been using the Kverneland, or KV as locals call them,

for over 10 years with excellent results. The White

Horse sulky plow with the Keystone bottom (sort of
an American or aftermarket version of the KV) is also
described in detail.
What sets this book apart from any other that I have
read on draft animal farming are the farm profiles and
extensive contributions from other teamsters. More
than 70 farms and farmers are featuredLuxembourgians, French, British, Canadians, Lakota Sioux,
and Germans, along with residents of every part of the
United States. Not only are they interesting to read,
but they offer a wealth of knowledge, experience, and
wisdom waiting for the new horse farmer.
The author writes about his visits to the Horse
Progress Days, the annual event for the horse farming
community. Last year it was held in Mount Hope,
Ohio, only 4 miles from our farm. Ill let Leslie tell you
about it. As an English friend once asked me, Isnt
horse progress an oxymoron? He just didnt get it.
You could say there are two groups of horse farmers
the Amish and some Old Order Mennonites, and the
others. Stephen Leslie is one of the latter, and I am one
of the former. We are not that much different, although
we may have come into horse-powered farming from
different mind-sets. Leslie made a choice to farm with
horses; my community helped me with my decision.
Most Old Order people tend to label everybody not
Plain as English. This is not by any means a pejorative
term; it is simply a manner of identification. I see some
humor in it because even a person with the name of
Fritz Krautkopf is still English to us.
The Old Order Amish came to the decision to stay
with the horse for fieldwork and transportation in this
decade about a hundred years ago. To me (and of course I
may be a bit biased) it was a stroke of genius. I often hear
the question, was it by accident or design? Probably some
of both, and we like to think, a nudge of guidance from
Providence. Not only did this choice preserve the small

Horse-Powered Farming for the 21st Century

farms and all the villages in our community, it preserved a viable reservoir of draft horses and knowledge
of working them for future horse-powered farmers.
My community here in Ohio is considered by many
to be the center of the horse economy. Most of the farms
have never been tilled with the power of the internal
combustion engine. We have the whole line of support
for horse farming. For one, the Mount Hope Auction
(where the Horse Progress Days were centered) is in the
midst of the community; here more horses are sold at
auction than anywhere else in this nation and possibly
the world. In 2014, over 9,100 horses went through the
sales ring, and this year, 2015, they expect to sell close
to 10,000 head. This includes saddle horses, ponies, and
Standardbreds. But most of them are draft horsesas
the Germans would say, cold bloods. Drafters, the kind
I followed behind for days and years.
Id like to add one nugget of wisdom from
Horse-Powered Farming for the 21st Century that
I found so intriguing because I was taught it at an
early age but have never before seen it in print. Here
it is: When properly hand-loading a manure spreader,

especially if youre loading tough box-stall manurethe

bull pen, for examplestart loading from the front end
(the New Idea No. 8 was Dads preferred spreader) and
finish at the back. That way the forks full of manure lap
toward the back like the scales on a fish and are easily
picked up by the beater, thus saving a lot of wear and
tear on the spreader. Dads spreaders usually lasted from
15 to 20 years. Were still using an NI 17 spreader that
we bought very used in 1994. Of course, Leslie covers
manure spreaders fully in the book.
Stephen Leslie ends the book with a beautiful essay
on the monarch and the perils the lovely butterfly is
facing. The over-wintering population in Mexico is
only 10 percent of what it was in 2009. He suggests we
first gaze in the mirror and then decide what we want
for our children. Is it a world that will have a place for
the monarch that our children and grandchildren can
enjoy? We both agree that a small-scale, sensible way of
right farming will go a long way toward providing that
place for all of us.
David Kline
April 2015