'Disc Ploughs, Scene in Australia' postcard, about 1924. National Museum of Australia.
In the early decades of European settlement, farmers relied on people working with hand tools to plant, harvest and process crops. Horses and bullocks were in short supply, as was equipment for them to pull.
Then, from the 1830s, draught horses and lighter workhorses became increasingly available and equine muscle became the key form of power on Australian farms.
For more than a century, horses coupled to an expanding range of machines worked the land, helping to drive agricultural expansion, defining farm life and reshaping the land.