Rural riddler 3
Editor at Naturenet
Uncooperative crusty. Unofficial Isle of Wight cultural ambassador. Conservation, countryside and the environment, with extra stuff about spiders.
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Well done for getting No. 2 so quickly – here’s the next Find the Fault.
This is a bit harder, so let’s see if anyone can get a bonus point too. Once more the relevant details are clear to see… good luck! The answer is in the comments. Scroll down to see it. Meanwhile, here’s a great video of some horse-drawn ploughs to give you a clue!
Aah – love those heavy horses in the video!
Can’t agree about the rein’s being too thin (although I think you mean the traces) have a look at
http://www.cwmdu.com/HORSE%20PLOUGHING%20(2).JPG
but then I have worked with heavy horses doing a coppice restoration!
Well done all – a lot of correct answers. Pascal gets the point for being the first to notice the official answer:
Not many of us will ever have seen horses ploughing, so it’s quite a tricky one. But in 1930 few adults living anywhere near a farm would not have seen a horse-drawn plough at some point, even if they were well on the decline by then. Check out the original post where I’ve put an interesting video of horses ploughing.
Dave Larkin as ever addresses most of the other points – yes, a pair of horses is normal, as was early spring ploughing at that time – almost unknown today. It’s probably also true that the trees came into leaf later in the spring in those days, too. Today even those few who plough in the spring would rarely do so in front of bare trees.
As for ploughing up crops – I’m afraid I don’t agree, Jonathan, I think it’s pretty normal to plough up a field with some kind of vegetation on it, be it stubble or weeds or whatever. If it didn’t have growth on it it might not need ploughing!
Only one bonus point this time, for good observation to Simon – I thought the reins were pretty thin too. I was tempted by the unipod farmer… but not that tempted. Try harder, Ms. Gardener.
Look out for number four coming very soon!
It is the lack of collars on the horses.
Most farmers round here do plough in the autumn now and sow winter wheat, although when these cards were published they would have ploughed in the spring as soon as the ground was dry enough (before the trees came into leaf) and planted sping wheat. Also a pair of shire horses was quite normal on heavy soils, although around here it was more typically oxen.
The farmer has only one leg?
Well the obvious is the missing collars as most people have pointed out, but I would also suggest that pulling a plough with a couple of bits of string might prove problematic.
You would need only one horse for a plough that size?? Also the big collars that draught horses wear to pull things are missing.
say he is plowing a “field”
it looks like he’s on the border between dirt and crops. you don’t plow crops!
Also, one typically uses oxen or mules for plowing and other low-speed high force jobs.
I’d agree – he seems to be ploughing grassland in the autumn, rather than the spring, and the horses are missing their pulling collars
It looks like the horses are missing the part of the coupling which goes in front of their breast.
Without that the flanges will just slide on their back as they try to pull the cart.
It looks like the leaves are off of the tress in the background, so I think that he is plowing and getting ready to plant in the Fall which is the wrong season. He should plant in the Spring.