No. 85.J 271 



believe, of about fourteen miles. In the performance of this service, 

 those teams were of essential importance. 



" The late Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, of Connecticut, (one of 

 the most judicious and efficient men in business that I ever knew,) 

 was then the contractor for supplying the French army with provi- 

 sions, teams, carriages, — in a word, with everything necessary for it, 

 in the quarter-master's and commissary's departments. I introduce 

 his name, because he had provided a great number of ox-teams and 

 wagons for the use of the French army during the same campaign, 

 and these also traveled to Virginia. 



" I always understood that the great transportation of provision and 

 stores from Massachusetts and Connecticut to the troops on Hudson's 

 river, was almost wholly^ performed by ox teams during the war. 



"Just at the close of the war, in the summer of 1783, I recollect 

 being at the house of an agricultural gentleman of Princeton, in New- 

 Jersey, where Congress was then sitting, and that Charles Thomson, 

 the Secretary, was present. One of Arthur Young's Agricultural 

 Tours in England lay on the table, and gave rise to a conversation 

 on the use of oxen for the draft, particularly when geared with collars, 

 hames, and traces, like horses; and Mr. Thomson related the follow- 

 ing fact, now, for substance, perfectly in my recollection. Traveling 

 in that part of Chester county in Pennsylvania which lay between 

 Lancaster in that State and Newport on Christiana creek, Mr. Thom- 

 son fell in with a team of a novel character in that country, being 

 composed of one pair of horses and one pair of oxen: and the latter 

 were accoutred with harness like horses, only with the collars turned . 

 upside down. His curiosity being excited he stopped and made some 

 inquiries, and received from the driver an account as follows: that 

 he and a neighbor, each having a horse-team and wagon, had enter- 

 ed into a contract to transport a quantity of flour (I think in a given 

 time) to Newport; that in the midst of the work one or two of his 

 horses failed, (fell sick or died,) and he was not in circumstances 

 conveniently to procure others; but he had a pair of oxen, and he 

 concluded to try whether they would supply the place of his horses; 

 that he made the experiment and succeeded. He told Mr. Thomson 

 that the oxen were more useful to him than horses; for after some 

 fall rains, when the roads had become miry, he continued to carry 

 his full complement of barrels of flour, while his neighbor's horse - 

 team, frequently getting stalled, (the familiar term in Pennsylvania 

 when a team gets set fast in a slough) compelled him to lessen his 

 loads. But he added, that in returning from Newport with their 

 wagons empty, his neighbor had the advantage in speed, although 

 none in the actual performance of the contract." 



Thus it appears that as Rome is said to have been saved by the 

 cacklino; of seese, the labor of oxen contributed on a critical occasion 

 to the establishment of the American Republic. So much in answer, 

 may we not say in refutation, of the objection made to these animals 

 in comparison with horses for heavy draft even on the road. 



For the speed of an ox-team in the plow we might rely on the 

 numerous certificates of committees for the last twenty years, in 



