MAINE STATE SOCIETY. 93 



In days not far distant in the past, the idea of taking oxen from 

 the yoke to the shambles, Avithout stall-feeding would have been 

 received with distrust ; but the best beef that has been slaughtered in 

 our State, and the fattest oxen that have been exhibited at our Fairs, 

 have been directly from the labors of the farm. Farmers who keep 

 "good feeders" and give plenty of food and kind treatment, uniformly 

 keep their working oxen in condition of beef In some instances 

 beef of the first quality has been made with work ; hay and grass 

 only added. 



In treating this subject I have taken the position, the correctness 

 of which will be denied by no practical man, that oxen employed in 

 farm labor make as great return, in labor, for food and care, as 

 horses employed in the same service. The results, as to profit or 

 loss, wilj not be varied, however unequal the amount of food required. 



Another item to be taken into the account is the much greater 

 cost of furnishing and keeping in repair harness, &c. for the horses ; 

 but without going into the minutia of the case, the foregoing I think 

 makes it apparent that the interest of the farmer should prompt him 

 to rely mainly on oxen in preference to horses for labor ; the true 

 features of the case are not changed by the fact that a man may get, 

 and often does get, a few years labor of horses without diminution of 

 their value, or selling price ; they are a dead loss to somebody at 

 last, notwithstanding. 



A horse is indispensable to every farm establishment, for market- 

 ing, family riding, and light farm work ; beyond this, the produce 

 of the farm should be fed to animals whose value is increased by 

 the daily feeding. Of the work horse the reverse is true. 



Having had no experience, and but little observation, on which to 

 form an estimate of the value of mule labor, I present only the sin- 

 gle inquiry : Having the ox so well fitted for the performance of 

 almost all our farm labor, having also abundance of food suited to 

 his nature, on which he will labor and make constant increase of 

 weight and value, why should the farmers of Maine supplant him 

 with the disagreeable mule, though he may live and work sixty years 

 on thistles, (a kind of food, by the way, more costly to the producer 

 than good hay or any thing else that the ox requires to bring him to 

 perfection,) then die and be thrown away? 



Gardiner, September 2, 1857. 



