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DRAUGHT OXEN. 513

ot In my opinion, the principal reason of the faintness bas: of oxen, in labour, and the presumed superior strength : of horses, as three to two, subsists merely in the in- tof med ferior keep of the former. Take a gang of pota- on} breed toe and oat-meal-fed Scotsmen, or bread and wa- red Young ter-fed Hampshire-men, and work them with Lon- shoul an don beef and beer-fed corm or coal porters; and eight gui attend to the event in point of speed and conti- nuance. Itis absolute folly to work oxen without OXEN, for corn, being matter of economy and saving to allow cussed: I it them, since the extra labour, compared with the have little corn allowed, leaves a profit. But oxen naturally ct on the require less corn than horses; and bean-meal seems ‘the farm- to agree well with them. Cabbages or carrots, ed, with bean-meal and clover or saintfoin chaff, with good ior dof oat-straw, will keep a Jabouring-ox in high con- e use of dition. Ihave known oxen and heavy black horses | subsists work together on wet poaching-land, and without r feet, for observing any difference, found both species did ming and mischiet enough in all conscience, As to the slug- » oxen of gishness of oxen, quoted in some particular in- + national stances, it does not bear at all upon the question. In 1 general sussex, oxen have beat horses at plough in the deep- onsideras est clays 5 in Herefordshire, they are held superior in be pu long journies, at chalk-cart, over a hilly and flinty aida country. The Devonshire oxen are speedy walkers; i-—What would probably be the event, were they bred : ape particularly with the view to speed, trained and fed hei as carefully, and as generally as horses? Four or id dow five horses will till one hundred acres of land. I fof By believe a man would find himself. much in pocket,—’ in the course of years, by the substitution of five, ued° er half-a-dozen good Devon, or Hereford oxen, fr, Bow EL whether In;

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