Farmhouse Horse by the Garden coloring page

About this coloring page

A farmhouse horse peeking over the garden fence is a reminder of how much American farms once depended on horsepower, the real kind. Before tractors became common, horses pulled plows, harrows, planters and wagons, letting a family farm far more land than anyone could work by hand.

Breeders developed heavy draft horses for exactly that job. Big, calm and enormously strong, breeds such as the Percheron, the Belgian, the Clydesdale and the Shire could lean into a harness and move loads that seem impossible today. Mules, the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, were also prized for their toughness, especially in the South.

A farm horse did much more than plow. It hauled the harvest to town, pulled the family buggy to church, dragged logs out of the woodlot and sometimes turned machinery. Its manure went right back into the garden as fertilizer, closing a neat little loop on the farm.

Through the twentieth century, gasoline engines replaced most working horses. Still, some Amish communities farm with horses to this day, and certain small organic growers and loggers have brought draft horses back, because hooves pack down soil far less than heavy machines do.

• horses
• farm
• vegetable garden
• sunflowers
• harvest