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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 8 (November 1, 1935)

The Return of the Horse

The Return of the Horse.

Dr. Heber, our recent visitor from Monte Video, Uruguay, in his travels through New Zealand viewing the land and the products thereof, has expressed pleasure at the increasing use of the horse on the farms of the country. Machinery for some time displaced the horse-power throughout the land, and those who liked to see a good horse grieved to contemplate its gradual disappearance. But the horse is coming back; the tractor is being discarded by many a farmer.

It has been noted, too, that there is a decided tendency to return to the horse in America. In England, Scotland, and Ireland, of course, the horse has never been displaced so largely as in New Zealand; the strong hold the saddle- and the plough-horse and carthorse have in the Old Land will never be shaken loose by mechanical contrivances.

Motor highways prevent the horse coming back for roadster use; but in a pastoral country like this there will always be great use for the saddle-horse. A good horse is excellent company; I do not think any motorist has ever felt disposed to pat his shining radiator on the neck or address kindly soothing words to the magneto or the carburetter.