Nancy Henry examines the mid-century coexistence of trains and horses and argues that horses became industrialised, machine-like commodities as they entered a new place in the cultural imagination. Railway construction in the 1840s meant that by the 1850s novelists recognised the coexistence of train and horse travel and raised questions about their economic and physical dependence on both mechanical and animal forms of power. The number of horses actually increased dramatically during the railway age as horses were needed to access stations and to carry freight to be loaded onto trains, and this led to an increasing number of accidents which figured as the focus of anxieties about risk, danger, and the unexpected. Henry observes a tipping point in the relationship between the Victorians and progress that manifests in this case in fictional narratives of travel accidents that generated plots of financial loss, disfigurement, and death.

Veterinary education, training, and employment shifted to support military needs in wartime. Conflicts around the world, including World War I, relied on millions of horses, dogs, and food-producing animals to supply armies. Wartime disruptions, and the movement of so many animals, sparked outbreaks of diseases that challenged animal owners, healers, and veterinarians. The use of horsepower declined in industrialized areas, depriving veterinarians of their most important patients. Many turned instead to livestock and food production. National campaigns against bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, and other zoonoses employed many veterinarians. Others worked on vaccines and therapeutics in biomedical research. With the outbreak of World War II, ethical questions troubled veterinarians who contributed to the development of biological weapons. Rebuilding the world’s food production systems after the war stimulated international veterinary cooperation and incorporated new tools, such as antibiotics. Veterinarians also helped make intensive animal production ("factory farming") possible by controlling diseases, while more and more vets in wealthier areas treated companion animals (pets).

Pumps are an integral part of many agricultural irrigation systems. A pump is used to lift groundwater to the ground surface, raise water from a lower elevation to a higher elevation, transport water, overcome friction, or generate pressure for the operation of sprinkler and trickle irrigation systems. This chapter discusses rudimentary aspects of pumps and their operation and selection.

A pipe is a closed conduit, and when it runs full its hydraulics is different from the hydraulics of open channels in which the upper surface of flow is exposed to the atmosphere. Pipes or closed conduits are used in sprinkler and drip irrigation systems to carry water from the source of water supply to the individual sprinkler or emitter. Water may be conveyed from a reservoir through a pipeline. These systems are also called pressurized irrigation systems. This chapter reviews the principles of pipeline hydraulics.