No man is able to really appreciate birthing a child, but there were times when I felt pregnant with this event. It seems that just like with procreation, the child was born and has grown into its own form. That form was in fact an extended family, with all the accompanying feelings of relief, promise and kinship. This event was just an idea to start with and was more of a herd experience in reality.

There is no way we can thank the folks enough that helped make this event actually happen. The vendors braved threatening weather, potential floods and unknown reception to bring equipment for demonstration and possible sales. The many folks that brought their animals from around the region came with a utilitarian attitude, plentiful smiles and good animals to flesh their will in the fields and forests.

Since we knew we couldn’t replicate Horse Progress Days – as just being a community of interest that wasn’t Amish or an event centered organized group – we could only hope to enable a gathering of proven practitioners and interested individuals in this culture of modern animal powered techniques. My friend Tommy Flowers said it was more like a cross of his South Carolina gathering and Horse Progress Days. The key to us was the selection of good teamsters that were willing to share their life experience with interested folks in a friendly, close up and personal experience. This was accomplished in a hospitable southern way, at a southern pace.

The visitors, although not numerous, were from far and wide. There were folks from Kansas to Toronto, from Florida to New York State and all points between and many beyond. There is no question that the weather limited attendance, but those that were there were real animal power enthusiast and shopping for goods to further their working with animals. All vendors reported reasonable sales and committed to returning next year.

As with nature – diversity reflects strength and this was a diverse group of folks and animals that offered a strong presence of animal powered culture. We were delighted by the success of the tillage portion of the event leaving some finely prepared seedbeds.

Loads of manure were spread using several different model spreaders including Conestoga. The White Horse Machine sulky plows with two different bottoms (O/JD-KV) turned perfect furrows on a strip contour in the slightly rolling bottom land. The Tennessee plowmen were following a headland turned by Farmer Brown with Tommy Flowers on a Leroy Walking plow. The Groffdale disk and Shipshe Supply Culti-mulcher made a pass and the soil was completely pulverized in a smooth, fossil fuel free, tillage action.

There were fields of evenly mown hay (no time for drying of course), but several mowing machines were demonstrated. The – I and J smaller ground drive PTO cart with battery powered hydraulics and scissor action double knife mower awed many spectators. That mowing machine seemed impossible to clog and pulled with just a team comfortably. This same ground driven cart was used to run a four foot wide rotary mower especially manufactured for the event by Tennessee River Implement Co., Decatur, Tn. It is amazing to just hear the whirring of the blades and see the grass flatten behind the team.

E-Z Trail had an area with just about everything anyone would need to go in the produce business, including sprayers, plastic layers, planters and even a vegetable washer. Their field sprayer was used applying seaweed based organic fertilizer. Their goods included regional dealer Bob Richen’s collection of equipment sold at his Banks Mountain Farm store – where you can even get a log arch made by Forest Manufacturing, Ltd. They also had the biggest tent right beside the plowed ground which was a kindly relief when the hot late summer sun broke through the mostly cloudy days.

The Back to the Land Store, operated by Jim Smith, Erwin, Tn., had an inside booth and several good pieces of used equipment outside. Jim has many supplies in stock for folks that are committed to self sufficiency. Many forecarts left the event in the backs of pickup trucks. Norm Macknair brought allot more stuff than he went home with and we appreciate his attention to the details of bringing lots of parts that many modern animal powered folks need. Three regional harness shops (S & S, Sneedville, Tn., Jackson Trading Company, Asheville, NC and Jack Moore, Mules and Moore, Taylors, SC) had booths that covered any needs for draft animal fitting of any size. Tommy Flowers brought collections of good used plow parts from southern brands. Farmer Brown had a lot of his good equipment, videos and several of the Sugar Valley Pulling Collars that are the choice of many serious teamsters. Rural Heritage Magazine set up indoors and while Joe Mischka photographed and filmed the activities his wife kept shop.

Athens Enterprises was there with three animal powered treadmills, horse powering all sorts of equipment that supported human life needs in a non fossil fuel way. These folks have to win the consistent innovator award for the event (if we had such a thing). Their use of animal power through the treadmills and sweeps are more than historical respect, it is pure innovation through engineering and dedication to animal power. We were delighted to have them with us and happy to hear that they sold a treadmill that weekend. We brought one home on consignment so if you are in the mid-Atlantic and want to see one or own one look us up.

Up on the hillside above the bottomland the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation crew were harvesting timber and educating the public about restorative forestry. Demonstrations of directional felling and use of the modern logging arches were ongoing throughout both days. It was a pretty steep walk up into the woods so the visitors that made it up there were determined and had good legs. We had planned to have a wagon (with brakes) transporting folks up there but the fellow that was going to do it was stranded at home worrying about his place getting washed away. Six HHFF board certified Biological Woodsmen (Jagger Rutledge, Chad Vogel, Ian Snider, Chad Miano, Adam Green and Blane Chaffin) were felling, grading, bucking and skidding logs to the sawmill at the foot of the hill behind the barn. Andy Bennett of Double Tree Farm was running his band mill and processed about 1250 board feet of lumber and beams. Hours of conversation, instruction and sharing went on in the woods and landing. Many visitors reported greatly enjoying this part of SDAD. A frequent comment was that this had never been seen any where else. The logging horses were all Suffolk’s. Clifford Cox brought his Suffolk team of a gelding and mare, along with a suckling colt. They moved throughout the event, mowing, tillage and skidding some firewood to the E-Z Trail area for splitting. Probably the greatest statement I could make about the animal powered logging portion was that I didn’t even go in the woods until the event was over. These young practitioners are seasoned veterans and did wonderful work in those woods just as they do everywhere they work. I don’t know how I could be any prouder of them besides just outright bragging that we think they are some of the best woodsmen in the world. There is no replacement for seeing this first hand, but buying/watching the upcoming media will be the best alternative to actually being there.

Scott Davis provided daily informative workshops on rebuilding, tuning and operation of the number 9 mower. His display of a completely dismantled machine and one that was intact and used in the field were a great addition to the demonstration of proven equipment and practices. Scott was assisted by mule man Terry Gilmore. Our understanding is that Dr. Davis, MD is a family practitioner, but his attention to this aspect of modern animal power seemed surgical.

Our transport from the parking area to the grounds was provided by Gerald Cox and Mr. Bill McNew. Gerald had a beautiful pair of Friesan cross mares and Mr. McNew had a great pair of gray mules. They were impeccable and worked hard both days.

Talks by two experienced draft animal veterinarians, (Dr. Phil Elsea, DVM, Johnson City, Tn. and Dr. Scott Hancock, DVM, N. Ga.) provided talks each day about their perspective of some problems and things to look for and ways of managing work animals for best results. Smart folks showing how to fix stuff – is worth seeing.

All the teams that participated in the invitational pull were winners, in that none of them hung their horses up at all. There were six teams, four Suffolk, one Belgian and one Percheron. They all crossed 8500 pounds on a runner sled and wet ground and then four dropped out. The remaining two teams were Chad Miano and his Suffolk geldings and Richard Redifer with a big pair of bare foot Percheron mares. The Percheron mares crossed 9000 and Richard dropped out with them and Miano went on to cross 9500 with his geldings. The crowd that stayed around for this pull were truly entertained by calm powerful horses that were as honest as they get. Richard’s big mares were not the best matched but what he could bring at the time. They stood quietly in front of the boat and started like one, despite the off mare out weighing her mate by about a couple hundred pounds. He had the big mare set in an inch plus, so there were more equally sharing the effort. Those mares laid down on their bellies and scratched that load across and then stood up like statues when Richard said whoa. They were the crowd favorite and great
ambassadors of their breed and a pure reflection of their handler’s skill. Chad Miano provided the sled and weights and was as impressive as always with his powerful pair of logging horses, that were related to all the other Suffolks at the event, all being kin to the horses at our place – Ridgewind Farm.  Alan Smith didn’t hook his pair. One of his horses was recovering from a cold and he had worked them hard all day in some hot temperatures. His excellent horsemanship was a remarkable example for anyone paying attention, particularly regarding this kind choice. I was impressed and honored to meet this fine horseman. Maybe we will get to see them pull next year.

It was to dark in the arena for photos and it somehow seemed appropriate that the only folks that saw this wonderful effort were the people that actually came to the event. This experience was like the prize in the bottom of the cracker jacks, you had to eat the other stuff first to get the goodies in the end.

It may be impossible to express enough thanks to all those that helped make this event possible, but that is our hope in writing this article and personally expressing our gratitude. Hours, days, weeks and months of email, phone conversations and advance planning trips went into the preparations. They were sincerely rewarded by the individual efforts of all those vendors, demonstrators and visitors that made the first Southern Draft Animal Days a cultural success. What may also be impossible to express is the deep thankfulness about the youth participating in this experience. Their presence gave the strength of new blood and fleshed out the changing of the guard in a natural way. They are the living proof of this all being fertile culture.

When speaking of culture our honored guest speaker comes to mind. As I read Wendell Berry’s latest books, “Bringing it to the Table” and his collection of poems entitled: “Leavings” – I am again unable to express the gratitude appropriate to his support and presence at SDAD – as an honored and respected elder and leader in this community of interest. Maybe using his words will work;

“The Idea of the family farm, as I have just defined it, is conformable in every way to the idea of good farming – that is, farming that does not destroy either farmland or farm people. The two ideas may, in fact, be inseparable. If family farm and good farming are as nearly synonymous as I suspect they are, that is because of a law that is well understood, still, by most farmers but that has been ignored in the colleges, offices and corporations of agriculture for thirty-five or forty years. The law reads something like this: Land that is in human use must be lovingly used; it requires intimate knowledge, attention and care.” quoted from the essay – “A Defense of the Family Farm” in the book, “Bringing It To The Table” .

This is recommended reading; give your self the gift of taking the time to read this mans words. If you have read this far in this article, you’ve earned it.

This brings us to announcement of the next SDAD event details. When we scheduled a meeting on the afternoon of the last day of this event, the weather became even more threatening, the grounds basically emptied and no-one showed up for the meeting. This leaves us to carry the event forward by default – if it is to happen. We did learn much about what we want to do differently and hope to implement those lessons in 2010 and onward.

We are planning to conduct the next events through collaboration with existing institutions of higher learning that have a common interest in sustainability, alternative food and fiber sourcing methods and modern animal powered roles. As if this event wasn’t difficult enough to put together – we are now embracing other complex entities

and the results are understandably slower to ripen, but promise to make for a better event. We are delighted to announce our new collaboration.

We will hold the next SDAD in collaboration with the Blue Ridge Institute and Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia on the 17^th and 18^th of September 2010.

There is a gap between heritage based techniques and the current community of interest in being sustainable. We intend to build a bridge connecting these camps and cross that bridge behind a working animal. Please come join us at this event.

So please stay tuned to Draft Horse Journal for more information the next Southern Draft Animal Days. We want to establish this date for as an annual event to perpetuate the culture of modern animal power in the southeastern U.S. and elsewhere.

Teamsters at SDAD

Jimmy – Linda Brown Jim Greene

Hunt, NY Luttrell, Tn.

Tommy & Hannah Flowers Gerald Cox and Mr. Bill McNew

Blackleigh, SC Tazewell, Tn.

Alan Smith Clifford Cox

Sardis, Tn. Saluda, NC

Chad Maino Ian Snider

Nickelsville, Va. Boone, NC

Blane Chaffin Andy Bennett

Riner, Va. Marshall, NC

Jagger Rutledge Volunteers

Copper Hill, Va.

Ben Sumner

Carl Whittaker

Betty McGurk

Chad Vogel Adam Greene

Canandaguia, NY Melanie Carrier

Kate Coates

Richard Redifer Ashley Taylor Rutledge

Maghaceysville, Va. Donna Cox

Andy Cox

Tim Atkins Dana Miano

Luttrell, Tn. Faun Rutledge

John Hall

David Atkins

Luttrell, Tn.

Justin Mitchell

Knoxville, Tn

Mike Sharp

Luttrell, Tn.

Steve Dalton

Knoxville, Tn.

Jason Kitts

Luttrell, Tn.

Gary Kitts

Maynardville, Tn.

Vendors

Farmer Brown’s Plow Shop Tommy Flowers

10809 Davis Rd. Blackleg Acres Farm Equipment

Hunt, NY 14846 2525 Ashleigh Rd.

585-567-8158 Blackville, SC 29817

leroyplows@yahoo.com 803-259-3350 -803-259-6500

www.farmerbrownsplowshop.com hannies@bellsouth.net

I and J Manufacturing White Horse Machine, LLC

5302 Amish Road 5566 Old Phila. Pike

Gap, Pa. 17527 Gap, Pa. 17527

717-442-9451 717-768-8313

IJmfg@epix.net

www.farmingwithhorses.com

Banks Mountain Farm Equipment Tennessee River Implements

EZ Trail, Conestoga Dealer P.O. Box 739

224 Thompson St. # 104 Decatur, Tn. 37322

Hendersonville, NC 28792 423-368-5500

828-685-1170

info@banksmountainfarm.com

www.banksmountainfarm.com

Jackson Trading Company S & S Harness Shop

641 Patton Ave. 282 Cheyanne Lane

Asheville, NC 28806 Sneedville, Tn. 37869

828-254-1812 423-300-9877

jacksontradingco@bellsouth.net

www.jacksonswesternstore.com

Mules and Moore

Jack Moore

3401 Wade Hampton Blvd.

Taylors, SC 29687

864-449-3535

www.mulesandmoore.com

Forest Manufacturing LTD

906 Daffodil Rd. B.W. Macknair & Son

Reynoldsville, Pa. 15851 3055 U.S. HWY 522 North

Lewistown, Pa. 17044

717-543-5136

Back to the Land Store

545 Salmon Branch Rd. Seven Springs Farm

Erin, TN 37061 Organic Farming and Gardening Supply

866-764-0034 426 Jerry Lane NE Floyd County

contact@backtotheland.com Check, Va. 24072

www.backtotheland.com 7springs@swva.net

www,7springsfarm.com

Healing Harvest Forest Foundation

8014 Bear Ridge Rd. SE

Copper Hill, Va. 24079

540-651-6355 rutledge@swva.net

Athens Enterprises

1821 Matherly Road

Liberty, Kentucky 42539

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Sustainable Forestry Group Links Heritage Based Culture with “Green Movement”

Open Woods Day November 2009, Held in the edge of Appalachia, Floyd, Va.

Reprinted with permission from Rural Heritage Magazine.

I find hope in this article title being an obvious statement to many of the Rural Heritage readers, but as John Prine sang, “that common sense ain’t so common anymore.”

Background  Overview ~

The use of modern draft animal power to address human needs makes so much sense that it escapes many folks. Some of the old timers seem to blame it on the schools; they say “they’re educated beyond their intelligence”.  It is so easy to pigeon hole the people that work with animals as being a throw back to the past. It apparently takes some real vision to see this work as a viable option for the future, because the green jobs creation program people didn’t make it out to our event.  Our goal in conducting these events is to educate the public by having them actually see this work – while describing it and defining “Restorative Forestry” as being as “green” as it gets.

But as we all know the most environmentally sensitive part of everyone is their wallet or the other “green” we all need.  This reality allows the conversations to be empowered by common sense again. We know that over the long term, a properly managed forest will make more money with less input than any another other land use.  Ok, a bigger one time return can come from a piece of land being used for building a house or development of some kind. But, since we also know that some land will never be available for building or development for many reasons, we have the option to manage it as a forest, as the superior use.  Our purpose is to promote this form of management as superior in every regard, except getting rich quick.  The economics are summed up by the bumper sticker that says:  Make a living, not a killing.

It is a unique position to have a non-profit that exists for the public good. What this means in a common sense way is that the group works to serve the public good when no other government agency is working in that particular way.  For HHFF it is a matter of it being obvious and common sense that the practices are more sensitive to the environment. But it is also common sense that you can’t make a living doing it if you sell all your products into a market that is commodity defined and supplied by fossil fuel fired unsustainable ways. This position allows us an opportunity in this great country – to compete with the government for some funds by having the status of being a Charitable Organization and being tax exempt, giving tax deductible receipts for any donations. This work serves the Public Good, probably in more ways than I can explain.

So, we present this perspective as a way of draft animal people to understand what this “treeroots” group is about.  We have had this status for over ten years now. This 501c3 status is a good deal – although the country is full of crooked non-profits of all sorts. Some are set up just to cry the sky is falling and most of the money goes to the people running them. That is not happening here folks. HHFF puts all of it’s money back into the community and promotes restorative forestry through the use of modern animal powered techniques. We are a completely volunteer organization. If anyone has any questions about this group please contact us. Charitable giving is very weak at the moment and we have a very difficult time competing for grants, for several unbelievable reasons, but the public still sends smalls amounts which keep us going.  Please see the address at the end of this article to contribute.

The Actual Work ~

The basic program at Open Woods Day is divided into three parts. First is the – Silviculture or how we grow the trees as a part of the whole forest ecosystem. The most important aspect of our silvics is taking the “worst trees first”. This phrase is so hard for a conventional forester to say. Mostly because they didn’t think it up, but also because they don’t make as much money on a single harvest that way. Our selection method of choosing individual trees based upon poor performance is done using a system we developed called “Nature’s Tree Marking Paint”. This is a list of physically visible indicators of decline divided into three categories of, Damaged, Diseased and Inferior. There are about 18 indicators that are taught to the Biological Woodsmen through the HHFF apprentice program. We explain and show these indicators to our visitors before felling the tree. This is the beginning of the manufacturing process and the timber cutter is the front door of the business. This is the most strenuous and dangerous part of the work. Great skill is required to do that part with safety and protecting the residual or trees left to grow faster. My son Jagger Rutledge is our timber cutter and handles this demonstration with skill in communicating and actually doing the job.  In a good site there can be several thousand board feet of logs per acre to harvest in this healing fashion. It requires almost surgical precision when felling. That is our silviculture in a simple sense.

The extraction method is the second aspect of the work that is shown at an HHFF Open Woods Day. We demonstrate the techniques of precise control of the animal power source used to extract the logs with ultimate lowest overland impact possible. There is always discussion of the driving touch and speaking to the animals. Visitors often think the horses are doing the work on their own as a result of the teamster’s subtle sensitive signals. The woods present obstacle courses that should make it illegal for a horse logger to compete in a “horse show” obstacle course contest.  The logging horses are so familiar and comfortable in the woods, it is there place of work after a short time of doing it. Each one has been introduced to the sounds of chainsaws running and trees felling before being asked to move around against the resistance of a loaded log arch. As long as all the loud noises and crashes don’t touch them in their first exposure they come to ignore it as a nothing to be afraid of.   We utilize a modern logging arch to provide front end suspension of log length segments, graded  and bucked by the timber feller and a skid trail cleared to access the logs. The modern logging arch plans are available on our web site and can be fabricated by a local welding shop or skilled welder anywhere. This device provides increased operator safety by riding and not being on the ground with woody debris and rough surfaces. The logging arch reduces the disturbance created when the log is skidded to the landing for loading or sawing on site. Many of the Biological Woodsmen have converted their harness to the New England D-Ring style to provide a more comfortable fit for the horses carrying the load and heavy tongue weight of an empty two wheeled log arch.

The third aspect of this work and demonstration is the marketing of the forest products to gain the greatest value for the landowners and the practitioners. When possible we prefer to value add the forest products by at least conducting the primary processing or sawmilling on site. This was the case with some species (black locust, cherry) that we had immediate markets for but unfortunately that doesn’t apply for all the tree species we harvest. So, as much as we can sell or afford to pay the processing cost on – stays in our inventory or is sold directly into local markets or markets developed through our DRAFTWOOD “community green certified” forest products program. These specialty products include Black Locust Decking that is sold as an alternative to rain forest species that are highly resistant to weathering in exterior applications. This species is a naturally preserved wood that will last for years without treatment in outdoor use. This product is often prescribed as a “green” alternative to the rain forest wood by architects that design high end homes for folks that are committed to the “green movement”, as implied in the title of this article. The remainder of our products beyond locally used lumber like oak fencing boards and farm building materials is sold into the conventional forest products industry, on a raw log delivered basis for whatever they will give for them. The more we value add, the more of the money stays in the local community and the more we build a constituency for the best care of the forest. When local folks make more money from their woods than having a conventional crew high grade or clear cut their woodlot, the more they like working with our program and approach to restorative forestry. As you might imagine this is a much slower process than bidding the timber off for a lump sum payment and the machines coming in and doing what usually happens to woods everywhere. Our approach protects the aesthetic natural beauty of the forest and over the long run (30 years) and multiple harvest rotations we make more money for the landowners and they have their forests intact throughout the process. We encourage them have their cake and eat it too.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article and for subscribing to Rural Heritage Magazine.

For more information about HHFF or the DRAFTWOOD program you may visit: www.draftwood.com or link to it through Rural Heritage web site or:
Healing Harvest Forest Foundation at: http://healingharvestforestfoundation.org
If you have any questions for thoughts about this approach you may contact me at:
Jason Rutledge, 8014 Bear Ridge Rd. SE, Copper Hill, Va. 24079, tel. 540-651-6355
Email: rutledge@swva.net

Please note: The next Southern Draft Animal Days has been scheduled for the 17th and 18th of September 2010 at the Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia. Stay tuned to Rural Heritage Magazine for more details, put it on your calendar and come join us for the second annual Southern Draft Animal Days.

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by Wendell Berry

Those of us who use draft animals for work on the farm or ranch or in the woods usually know that we are odd. We don’t fit well into the modern pattern or live up to the modern ideal, which applies relentlessly to every task the maximum available power with the greatest possible speed. The teamsters of farms and forests are likely to be regarded as old-timers—or, worse, as hobbyists – clinging to outmoded technologies and ways for reasons merely sentimental.

Maybe there is a grain or two of truth in that, but it is not significant. The larger truth is that draft animals have continued to be used, by people who know how to use them, because they make their own kind of practical sense. Put to appropriate tasks that are appropriately scaled, their work gives a favorable practical result and a favorable economic return. If that were not true, the draft breeds and the teamsters’ skills would not have survived.

Back in the 1970’s, with the examples of good Amish farms before us, my friend Maury Telleen helped me to see that the presence of draft horses or mules on those farms was not a simple choice of one kind of traction power over another. It was, instead a choice of one kind of farming, and one way of thinking about farming, over another. What Maury understood and helped me to understand was that those work teams were a determining force against specialization and for diversity. They were part of a package or a pattern. If you were working horses or mules, then, merely in the nature of things and following an obvious logic, you would also have pastures, fenced fields, forage crops, feed grains, barns for stable room and feed storage. Those things in turn made for the keeping of other kinds of animals. Diversity of crops and animals led, in turn, to the rotation of crops, the use of cover crops, the use of manure as fertilizer. The farm thus sponsored much of its own operating energy and fertility. Moreover, the use of draft animals determined the scale of the farm. The farms had to be what we would call “small” or “family-sized”—acreages that could be worked and maintained with a reasonable expenditure of effort by the work animals and therefore by the people as well. A good Amish farmer told me that he had learned from his father never to have a horse harnessed after supper. That guaranteed enough rest and good health for the horses, and also some leisure for the family.

If the use of draft animals implies diversity, homegrown energy and fertility, appropriateness of scale, and a significant measure of built-in economic health on the farm, it also implies economic diversity and health in the local community. I am thinking, for example, of Holmes County, Ohio, where the horse-powered farms are supplied and served by an impressive variety of local shops, trades and industries: harness makers, farriers, farm equipment factories, and so on. I am also thinking of the small towns of my boyhood, in which all sorts of independent small businesses survived and even thrived by participating in an economy of small, horse – mule-powered farms – in which every shore-repair shop repaired harness, and a lot of farm equipment was built or re-built or repaired in local blacksmith shops.

If we can see that draft animals on the farm belonged to and led to a distinctive kind of farming, then we will have no trouble in seeing that the substitution of tractors for draft animals belonged to and led to farming of a radically different kind. The tractors too have proved to be part of a package, as we can now clearly see. The tractor package included increased dependence on farm equipment corporations and oil companies, increased dependence on credit, increased dependence on toxic chemicals, ever-larger farms and ever-fewer farmers, loss of diversity, increased specialization, more acreage planted in annual crops and less in perennials, more erosion, clearing of woodlots, removal of fences, less wildlife. All this implies and has led to a highly centralized long-distance economy, a commensurate decline of local economies and communities and of the whole social structure of rural America. I don’t mean to say that you can’t farm well with a tractor. You can, but to do so you must take care to regulate your work by the nature, the carrying capacity, and the sustaining pattern of your farm, not by the capabilities of your machinery.

The same interests and forces that have brought about our centralized, long-distance agricultural economy have also brought about a centralized, long-distance forest economy. The economic principle is everywhere the same: a domestic colonialism that extracts an immense wealth from our rural landscapes, returning as near nothing as possible to the land and the people. The producers of agricultural products, nearly all, nearly always, are absolutely at the mercy of the buyers. Producers of forest products are in about the same fix. The Market News Service of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture doesn’t publish the current market prices for saw logs.

Given the growing demand for local food, and the increasing numbers of farmers’ markets and Community Supported Agriculture farms, it is becoming fairly easy to imagine the development of local farm and food economies in which communities and localities produce, process, market, and consume local farm products, marketing any surpluses to outside demand.

But we need to be moving also toward the integration of forestry into the local farm and food economy, wherever the farms are likely to include woodlands. And wherever forests or woodlands are predominant in the landscape we need to think of developing local forest economies which, instead of exporting raw logs, would produce, process or manufacture, and market the fullest variety of forest products, from lumber for building to mushrooms and nuts, from fence post to firewood, from Christmas decorations to finished furniture.

The answer, the only answer, to economic colonialism is to make the greatest local advantage of the products of the local countryside, producing and processing for local consumption first of all, and then for export. This exactly reverses the colonial ideal, which would have the local people starve in order to export food, or live in shacks and shanties in order to export logs.

Obviously, I’m already talking about “job creation” in the best sense. If your community is making its living primarily by the export of raw materials for manufacture elsewhere, then along with your logs or your wheat or your cattle you are exporting jobs, and then you will be exporting your young people to take those jobs. All that is clear enough. We have seen it happening.

But now, since we’re a convocation of users and lovers of draft animals and are used to being odd, let’s carry this vision of local forest and farm economies just one radical step further. Let’s suppose that a significant part of the traction power in those already complex economies were to be furnished by horses and mules — and, since this is a democratic vision, and for the sake of ox drivers who may be listening, let us include oxen. If we should do this, we would create more jobs, somewhat in the pattern of the best Amish communities. By scaling down and simplifying our technology, we would truly be bringing our economy home, where it belongs. Instead of paying outside the community for large machines and fuel, we would be providing income locally to makers of equipment, producers of feed, farriers, breeders, and so on.

The economic advantages of such local economies as I am talking about are probably clear enough. Their promise is not luxury or extravagance for a few, but a modest, decent, sustainable prosperity for many. In addition, there would be an equally significant ecological advantage. In a complex local economy, in which a lot of people were economically dependent on the products of the local landscape, there would be the strongest local support for good land use. People knowingly dependent on the land would not willingly see it cropped or grazed or logged to exhaustion.

I’ve laid before you what I’ve been calling, rightly, a vision. Like you all, I hope, I’m skeptical of visions. And so I will hasten to point out that this vision is a modest one. The scale is small, and I would be greatly surprised if it should produce even one billionaire. It is also a practical vision. I don’t think it is fully in practice anywhere, not even among the Amish. But we know that many, maybe most, of the pieces of it are already in existence, properties of the actual daily lives of actual people, though so far they may be pretty widely scattered.

This vision, in no doubt many versions, exists because it is attractive to some of us. But also we are going to see it enforced from the outside, so to speak, by the increasingly manifest failures of industrial forms of land use. I don’t think I need to say a lot about these failures beyond just listing them. The principal ones are these:

1. Erosion and degradation of the soil.
2. Pollution by toxic chemicals, resulting in unswimable streams, inedible fish and a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico (one of at least 400 worldwide) of 6,000 square miles.
3. Toxic or pathogenic food.
4. Forest ecosystems damaged or destroyed by high-grading, clear-cutting, tree monocultures, etc.
5. Land destruction on a gigantic scale by forms of surface mining, culminating in mountaintop removal.
6. Destruction of rural communities and the cultures of husbandry.

For a long time the exorbitant costs and damages of industrial exploitation of land and people were talked abut only by a fringe of dissidents and protesters. But now these problems have caught the attention of mainstream reporters and are making their way into public consciousness. To give just one example, TIME magazine for August 31, 2009, carries an article on industrial agriculture and industrial food that would have been unimaginable even last year. The article says flat out:

With the exhaustion of the soil, the impact of global warming and the inevitable rising price of oil . . . our industrial style of food production will end sooner or later . . . Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food, they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, and higher health costs . . .

But the good news is that we don’t have to be consenting victims of agribusiness-as-usual. To give just one example on the positive side, Wes Jackson and The Land Institute – with the backing of a numerous coalition of groups and institutions – have just proposed to the Secretary of Agriculture “A 50-year Farm Bill” which addresses head-on the problems of erosion, toxicity, and the decline of farm communities. The key change proposed by this bill is the increase in the acreage of perennial plants from 20% in 2009 to 80% in 2059. This change would involve at first increases in pasture and forage crops, and then, starting in 2019, the introduction of perennial grain crops.

The proposed perennialization of agriculture, like the horse and the tractor, would not be a simple choice. It to will be a package deal. A significant increase just in pastures and forages implies a new diversification. Replacing corn and soy beans grown for animal feed with perennial grasses and legumes would reduce erosion and save energy; it would also take cattle, hogs, and poultry out of the animal factories and put them back on farms, where they belong. Diversification would tend to reduce the size and increase the number of farms; it would bring more people into agriculture where at least some of them belong. An increase in the number of diversified family-size farms, together with higher energy costs, would increase the number of places where draft animals would fit in and make practical sense.

This is a prospect pleasing to all of us who are devoted to draft animals and to better, kinder ways of using the land. But it involves worries too, and to make this speech as honest as possible I want to speak of a couple of worries.

Most people who understand good land use know that to use our land in the best way, we will need more people on our farms and ranches and in our forests. We need a better ration of eyes to acres, as Wes Jackson has put it. We need more people skilled in physical work, who have workable minds. How are we going to get them? That is my first worry. I don’t think we can get the best work done by underpaying and overworking an underclass of migrant workers. I think we will have to go back to our old agrarian ideal, espoused by Thomas Jefferson among many others, of a countryside populated by settled families and stable communities earning a decent livelihood from their work and their goods. But by reducing our land-using population as drastically as we have done since World War II, we have dangerously reduced the skills necessary for resettling our land. It seems certain to me that we are coming to a time when a lot of people are going to need a lot of patient and neighborly instruction.

If you can imagine a good many ignorant people wishing or needing to learn to use draft animals, then you will know my second worry. The most knowledgeable users of work animals know they don’t know everything. And probably most of them have a list of mistakes, bad surprises, narrow escapes, and sometimes serious injury or damage. We want those lists to stay as short as possible. If, as seems possible, more people are going to think of using draft animals at work, they and we will need to stay reminded that some people should NOT use them, and that, in using them, ignorance is dangerous. Moreover, those of us who appreciate these good animals don’t want to see any of them misused or mistreated. Capable and conscientious teamsters already have, and certainly will continue to have, a responsibility to pass along their knowledge. We need to keep this on our minds. One of my own favorite pleasures is to imagine the teaching that will be branching out form the work of hands-on teachers like Jason Rutledge, his students, and their students, on and on for generations to come.

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