Back to the Nineteenth Century
High cost of gas pushing America backwards.
by Jeff Davis
It looks like we just took another step toward the Third World. The Associated Press reports “High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it.”
This was actually a fairly common occurrence in parts of Africa and other Third World ex-colonies after the European powers pulled out. It seems most Third World people couldn’t keep their infrastructure going or pay their bills for fuel, plus maintenance on tractor engines and cars, and so they reverted to horses and oxen for transportation and agriculture. In some parts of Africa, they couldn’t even maintain farms with horses and oxen. Zimbabwe has had no fuel and a serious food shortage for months now.
The AP article continues “T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits. ‘This fuel’s so high, you can’t afford it,’ he said. ‘We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That’s the truth.’” (more…)