You laugh. One of those blew up in a county-fair exhibit in Ohio a few years back...killed the operator, his assistant, and a teenaged girl standing in the line of the blast.
I rather favor the horse. Doesn't need warming up; fuel is plentiful; and the only time it blows up is if it's laying dead in the sun for a few days.
Ol' Paint makes better steak in desperate times, too, at least from what the French say.
Yes, there is a hazard involved with steam engines, and old ones are more likely to experience a malfunction than one which has been well refitted (a dying art, no pun intended). Operators aren't a dime a dozen, either.
But look at the top ten list of hazardous professions, and Farming is still there.
I know a guy who amputated his own mangled arm with a jack knife, so he could get to help two miles away. The rest of it remained tangled up in the equipment for a while after he left. He isn't the only one I know of, just the only one I know, and he fully accepts the responsibility for what happened, having become complacent about the danger some time before the accident.
