266 j Senate 



ed, with as much solicitude, and much greater kindness, than we 

 bestow on our best horses. The Indian cattle are extremely docile, 

 and quick of perception, patient and kind ; like the horses, their chief 

 traveling pace is the trot ; and they are reported by those who have 

 ridden them often, to perform journeys of sixty successive days at 

 the rate of thirty to forty-five miles a day. 



To come back to our own country on this point, it is worthy of 

 being here added that in an address delivered before the Barnwall 

 Agricultural Society of South Carolina in 1821, Dr. J. S. Bellinger 

 remarked, that "in the lower districts of our State they appear fully 

 to appreciate the value of their labor in heavy drafts. With those 

 of us who have attempted the use of them, oxen appear fully calcu- 

 lated to answer the many purposes upon our farms to which we almost 

 exclusively apply the more expensive, though nobler animal, the 

 horse." 



Time was when the horse was not considered " the nobler" of the 

 two ; else why the many cautions in Scripture in favor and in honor 

 of the ox — thou shalt not muzzle the ox — thy ox shall not labor on 

 the Sabbath day — thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife nor his 

 maid — nor his ox ! 



The late James M. Garnett, of Virginia, honored be his name by 

 all friends of American agriculture, stated in one of his addresses — ■ 

 " A gentleman of my acquaintance had a mixed team of horses, 

 mules, and oxen— in each season his horses failed first, the mules 

 next, although both were fed upon grain and hay ; and the oxen, fed 

 exclusively on hay and grass, finished the crop.''\ But to come down to 

 the present time and nearer home, in Maryland, at the hottest season 

 of the. year and the most busy one with the planter, the same teams 

 of oxen are worked, during the whole day, hauling very heavy loads 

 of green tobacco for weeks together, and do well without any food 

 but the grass of common pasturage on being turned out at night, — 

 whereas hqrses, worked steadily in the same way, on the national 

 road in wagons, consume twenty-five pounds of hay, and grain at the 

 rate of four bushels of oats per day for the five horses, or four-fifths 

 of a bushel for each horse — or, what is considered equivalent, four 

 bushels of corn in the ear — making of oats at the rate of two hundred 

 and thirty-two bushels for each horse for a year ! ' 



As to horse power on the national road, the following is the answer 

 from Major Thruston : 



" Cumberland, Maryland, Nov. 17, 1843: — The general result, (for 

 they differ widely in their opinions), obtained by conversation with 

 the oldest teamsters on the national road, is this — A five-horse team 

 with a load of sixty cwt. (the average) will make daily, throughout 

 the year, fifteen miles per day ; the weight of the empty wagon be- 

 tween one and a half and two tons. At this work horses will not 

 last as long as at farm-work by one-third, certainly. They average one 

 •set of shoes monthly, each horse ; cost of shoes, one dollar each per 

 month ; feed, four bushels of oats per day, or four-fifths of a bushel per 

 day to each horse j the same of corn in the ear ; hay, twenty-five 



