Horse-Drawn Days

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A Century of Farming with Horses

Jerry Apps

Relive the majesty of working horses and celebrate the animal’s role in our national and agricultural heritage—through stories, images, and history.

216 pages, 8 x 9, 139 color and b&w photos and illustrations
Paperback: $24.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-445-6
Ebook: $15.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-536-1
Publication Date: 6/1/2010

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Description

Before tractors or steam engines arrived on the farm, horses did all the heavy work. From spring plowing to the fall harvest, the mighty draft horse powered farms across the American Midwest. Relied upon to complete a multitude of tasks—including towing threshing machines and plows, hauling milk to the local cheese factory, and pulling the family buggy to church each Sunday—these animals were at the center of farm life, cementing the bond between human and horse. In Horse-Drawn Days, renowned farm historian and author Jerry Apps captures stories of rural life at a time when a team of horses was a vital part of the farm family.

In exploring this vital agricultural legacy, Apps pairs a lively narrative with reminiscences about his own boyhood on the family farm in Wisconsin to paint a vivid picture of a bygone time. Featuring fascinating historic photos, ads, and posters, plus contemporary color photos of working horses today, Horse-Drawn Days evokes the majesty of these animals and illuminates the horse’s role in our nation’s formative years and enduring rural heritage.

Author Bio

Celebrated storyteller and rural historian Jerry Apps was born and raised on a central Wisconsin farm. He was a former county extension agent and professor at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Apps authored more than fifty fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, including Every Farm Tells a Story: A Tale of Farm Family Values, The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters, When the White Pine Was King, and Barns of Wisconsin, all published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

Jerry Apps once again gives his readers a fencerow view of farming practices in the early half of the 20th century. . . . A wonderful history lesson that goes beyond the ‘seasons’ of working the soil and tending livestock.

Joan Sanstadt

News editor of ‘Agri-View’

“Horse-Drawn Days adds to Jerry Apps’s credentials as the ‘dean’ of Midwest regional writers. The book deftly combines personal narrative, folk culture, mechanical knowledge, and loving tribute to the large horses that long powered rural America. Jerry has produced an excellent history and field guide that will delight those who remember those times and those ways and will intrigue and inform those who missed out. This book belongs on every shelf devoted to rural culture and country living.”

—Dennis Boyer, Former draft horse logger and author of Listen to the Land

“The vital details that have gone into Horse-Drawn Days are just another example of Jerry Apps’s attention to detail. The stories woven in with all the details help even people with no connection to the land or agriculture enjoy the [book]. It was a little shocking even to me—a farm girl—how much change agriculture has gone through in such a short period of time! . . . It also better helps me understand the deep appreciation some of my family members have for their draft horse stories. As usual, Apps conveys a pretty strong message of remembering our past and learning from all of it.”

—Pam Jahnke, Farm Director, Farm Report Radio

“Jerry Apps is a master storyteller. . . . The book offers information about work horses that might otherwise be lost if it wasn't written down. It was an important time in our history, and there aren't that many people who can remember those days. And there especially aren't many people who can tell the story as well as Jerry Apps.”

—Jim Massey, editor, The Country Today