SECRETARY'S REPORT. 211 



be passed in profitable labor upon the farm. Two holidays a month, 

 would be twenty-four a year for each horse, and twelve thousand a 

 year for the five hundred horses. Reckoning a dollar for each day, 

 the annual loss to the county for time wasted by its surplus number 

 of horses, is twelve thousand dollars. The sum of these items is 

 fifty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, which is all 

 absolute loss. But there is relative loss as well, two items of which 

 I proceed to indicate. 



The capital vested in those fifteen hundred surplus horses, value- 

 ing them as above, at fifty dollars apiece, is seventy-five thousand 

 dollars. Let this be laid out in cows at twenty-five dollars each, 

 and we have three thousand in number. Each of these cows will 

 bring to her owner, a net income of eight dollars per annum, making 

 an annual income brought by the whole of twenty-four thousand 

 dollars, and showing the same amount as an annual relative loss to 

 the county from surplus of horses. 



The other item comes from the fact, as stated above, that one 

 sixth of all the horses (750) are kept to do the service which would 

 be better done by oxen. Mr. N. Foster of Gardiner, in his essay 

 on the comparative value of horses and oxen for farm labor, (see 

 "Agriculture of Maine," for 1857, page 92,) estimates the differ- 

 ence in value of a pair of oxen against that of a pair of horses, to be 

 for twenty-four years, eleven hundred and eighty-three dollars. 

 This would be about fifty dollars for one year. Then for the seven 

 hundred and fifty horses — being three hundred and seventy-five 

 pairs — the difference in favor of ox labor would be, eighteen 

 thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, which -is the amount of 

 relative loss to the county from surplus of horses. 



The two -items together, amount to forty-two thousand seven hun- 

 dred and fifty dollars — relative loss. 



Adding to this the sums before obtained, fifty-three thousand 

 seven hundred and fifty dollars — absolute loss; and we have an 

 absolute and relative loss of ninety-six thousand five hundred dol- 

 lars. 



I suppose it to be not exactly an indispensable part of my work, 

 either to go into any general remarks, or to take much pains in citing 

 individual cases bearing upon my topic. Nevertheless, I venture 

 to say, that it might not be very hard to find upon the field of my 



