Reading Notes: Creating Abundance, Alan Olmstead
Quotes: By allowing farmers to substitute animal power for human labor. . . . While labor productivity was rising rapidly, the yeild per acre of land harvested was almost constant”
- Alan L. Olmstead 2008
Biological innovation prior to WWII was vastly overshadowed by mechanical inovation as noted in history.
Horses became obsolete not because they cost to much to buy feed for but because they required grass and hay which took up land and gas was an outsource comodity.
Straw became a nuisance as tractors replaced horses, but corn stralks were valuable because they were used for silage, as corn was mostly fed to livestock and wheat was mostly a human food.
more crops, more animals, more animals, more manure, more manure, more crops - old farmer wisdom
land abundance in the colonies before the revolution lowered the price of feed, which made it more economical to have draft power and the Americas were well know for their liberal use of draft power.
“the horse is looked on as a machine, beacuse sentiment pays no dividend” - unknown
the highest point of draft culture (biological) evolution and pre fossil fuel mechanical evolution were parallel
It is difficult to gauge what advances were mechanical vs biological with interconnected systems such as mechanical implements and draft horses.
horse vs oxen vs mules (note mostly anecdotal qualitiative evidence 1830-1900)
horses - work faster, work better in snow, more social and adjustable, can be driven solo, need less breaks and are more easy to manage with implements and mechanization
oxen - cheaper animals, work better in mud, cheaper equipment, less prone to injury and illness, need less feed, pull more dead weight, swim better
mules - ate less, withstood more heat / abuse, matured earlier, smarter, suffered less from neglect / abuse, more tolerant of different drivers, more delicate with crops
after civil war animals became more specialized (ie meat cattle, dairy cattle, draft horses)
Most American draft horses came from northwestern europe, (Percherons from France, Suffolk and Shires from England, Clydesdales form Scottland etc)
At height of horse breeding in USA horses required almost 100 million acres to feed the close to 30 million horses in the country.
southwestern / californian cattlemen exceeeded in training horses for cutting; a new technique adapted to wide open native grazing on sagebrush and subsequent roundups.
Many govt regulations were set up in the late 1906 (theo rose) to regulate the breeding of draft horses.
US Govt established 1st breeding farm for military horses in Vermont using the local morgan horse as foundation sires, bred by Justin Morgan (composer) in Middlebury Vermont.
Roosevelt tried to replace mule with a animal of more quality and finish by crossing a zebra
