Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 149, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1920 — THE FUTURE OF FARM HORSE HARD TO PREDICT [ARTICLE]

THE FUTURE OF FARM HORSE HARD TO PREDICT

With motor trucks and automobiles the competitors in the cities and farm tractors his rivals on the farm, the future of the horse as a work animal would seem to be dubious. Though horses, especially pure-bred draft and coach horses, are bred on a large scale in Canada and are increasing in numbers, statistics show that tractors are gradually supplanting them as work animals oil the farm. J. I. Brittain, United State consul general at Winnipeg, reports that fifty-three manufacturing firms sold 8,844 farm tractors and 104 steam traction engines in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1919. Of 25,000 tractors now owned by farmers in the three provinces, 7,500 were purchased in 1918 and 5,000 in 1917. Mr. Brittain estimates that 10,000 tractors will be bought by farmers this year. In 1919, $14,500,000 was invested in tractors, and in 1920 he estimates $17,500,000 will be invested. One firm last year sold 1,000 tractors in western Canada. A group of six farmers in a community on the Canadian National railway a few years ago owned sixty horses. The same six farmers today own twenty-four horses, or an average of four apiece. They have sold off the other horses and supplanted them with farm tractors. This proportionate decrease in farm work horses, it is said, holds good in many other communities. Tractors, the farmers say, do more work and do it more rapidly than horses and cost considerably less to operate than horses cost to feed. Many farmers now use tractors for plowing, seeding, cultivating, harvesting and all other kinds of farm work formerly done by horses.