Hi Paul ,
Thanks , The one thing that has always amazed me is how these guys (the wheat farmers)
do so well without irrigation (dry land farming ) and I've been told that some of the farms
in this region produce some of the best wheat in the world . Kris

Just thought I post this picture for fun , I call it farming with real horse power ...

Thanks for taking the time to take and post a few photos of agricultural Cats that are ready to work. Living in Colfax you are at the heart of the action for the Palouse area. I hope you can get more pictures posted over the coming fall. I really miss the guys that used to post pictures from the area that were farming the area. I had the pleasure of being in Colfax a few years ago and found it to be a very nice town.

"krisinwa.st." wrote:

Just thought I post this picture for fun , I call it farming with real horse power ...

Great picture. As well as I could count I think there is 5 rows with 6 horses in each row. Imagine the amount of care and feed required to harvest 20 acres a day just caring for he horses plus all the other labor intensive tasks that went on.

"old-iron-habit" wrote:

Great picture. As well as I could count I think there is 5 rows with 6 horses in each row. Imagine the amount of care and feed required to harvest 20 acres a day just caring for he horses plus all the other labor intensive tasks that went on.

They were a tough bunch , plus the day time temps. can be in the 100 plus range, during harvest. Hopefully I can get more working pictures of Cats , not to many farmers still using
them , I always have my camera in the pickup and hope for the best .
.

To add to Old Iron Habits comments, those horses were only worked 1/2 of the day and then changed out with fresh ones.... We think today we have labor intensive jobs... Look at farming that way....!

There are a couple of books that pertain to early farming in the pacific north west. First one is called "The Horse Interlude ". Second is "This was Wheat Farming ". They are both chock full of great pictures of farming in the early days here. They're both older but if you can find them I would definitely recommend them.

Nice pictures Kris, the fields always look neat after the deep furrow drills go over them.
As far as feeding horses went, grandpa said it to about 20% of your ground to keep the horses fed. They were tickled to trade their horses in on an RD-4. He said his only regret was not getting the RD-7 that was at the dealer instead of the 4.
Bruce P.

Not knowing anything about the hookup of the hitch on these combines or on wagons, I always wondered how they could drive the combine with two lines and it took a set of lines each for the leaders, swingers, and wheelers on a wagon.

Roger is correct, most hitches ran 33head and in some cases 27.

I'm not sure but I don't think you can run mules in the same hitch with horses.

"I'm not sure but I don't think you can run mules in the same hitch with horses."

The Death Valley borax operation (1880's- Death Valley to Mojave) ran two horses and eighteen mules in their Twenty Mule Teams. Their Twenty Mule Team Road came through my area about 1/4 mile north of my house.

Daron