It says, “Mrs Dwight Misner of Ione OR drove thirty horses pulling a nine bottom plow in 1924 Together they were able to turn 24 acres a day.”
Anybody have any idea why you would do this? Is it because the ground has never been tilled before? Is it because you don’t have human help so you hitch 'em all together so one person can work all day with a team that doesn’t tire as soon?
I don’t know about the plowing side of things. But on FB there’s a group called “draft horse friends,” and some of the folks on there are into many-horse hitches. All I’ve seen so far is wagons, not plowing. When asked “why,” the answer is usually something along the lines of “because we can” or “because of the challenge.” I’d hazard a guess this old photo may be similar … someone just doing that to see if they could, not necessarily an every day occurrence.
Again, not saying I know anything, just guessing.
Anne, the big hitches can distribute the work more evenly if they are well-driven. They can walk out more steadily and need fewer blow breaks. The rolling wheat country of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, saw a lot of big hitches for plowing, seeding, and harvest, because the terrain was very steep in places. You can see many fields now that were farmed with horses, but are now abandoned to nature because winter wheat isn’t making as much money as it used to, and a number of other reasons. Winter wheat is planted in the fall and sprouts over the winter, hopefully under a protective layer of snow, and is ready to harvest earlier in the summer. It is grown dryland, without supplemental irrigation. These fields were huge, and it would take forever to prepare them with only a pair or four-up. More horsepower!
That is one BIG plow with seven furrows being made! Heck my modern small tractor couldn’t move it. She probably needed all those horses to get that kind of work done.
Plowing 24 acres a day with horses is an incredible amount of ground prepared in a days work! I know they considered an acre a day plowing with a pair and walk-behind plow to be a good days work for a small farmer. A riding plow would greatly increase your plowing speed, with much less work holding it in the ground by the driver. Then add in size of plow, 7 rows, to make this a heck of a set-up for getting acreage into production.
I did find the hitching interesting, since she appears to only be driving the Leaders, no reins to each animal. But draft hitches often did that kind of rein set-up, only reins on some of the horses, while all others just followed.
i don’t really have any useful info, but that picture is awesome!
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