GENERAL RULES FOR PLOUGHING. 459 



12. HORSES USED FOR PLOUGHING. Ploughing here is almost 

 universally done with horses. 1 saw some oxen ploughing at 

 Holkham, with leather harnesses and breastplates, instead of 

 yokes and bows, as employed in New England, and I have 

 found oxen used in some few other cases, but, within my obser 

 vation, these cases are very rare. The question of the com 

 parative expediency of employing horses or oxen in farm work 

 \viil come up for discussion presently. 



The horses are extremely well trained, and usually groomed 

 with the greatest care. I have found one remarkable excep 

 tion to this practice, and that of a very large farmer of high 

 repute. He never suffered his horses to be curried or sheared, 

 or confined in stables. When brought home from their work, 

 they were turned into open yards, with capacious sheds, and the 

 stable doors, without any division of stalls, were always left open. 

 The mangers were plentifully supplied with food, and the 

 troughs with water, and they ate and drank, stood or reclined, 

 or walked about, as they pleased. The yards and stalls were 

 always most abundantly littered. I should have scarcely thought 

 proper to mention a case of management, which some might pro 

 nounce careless and slovenly, and of which, in riding through 

 some parts of New England, one would hardly be at a loss to 

 find examples, were it not that this was the practice of a very 

 large farmer, extremely skilful and intelligent, and the favorite 

 tenant and model of one of the largest proprietors, and one of 

 the greatest agricultural improvers in the country, (the late Lord 

 Leicester,) and that he pursued this practice from choice, and 

 because he deemed it most conducive to the health and comfort 

 of the animals. He maintained that the animals, not being kept 

 in warm stables, but familiar with the changes of the weather, 

 bore them with less inconvenience and suffering than they other 

 wise would have done ; that a great deal of time and trouble 

 was saved in the care of them ; that, being at liberty to lie down 

 when they pleased, their rest was more refreshing than if con 

 fined and tied in a stall ; that, the hair being given them for a 

 covering, it was wrong to strip them of their flannels at a season 

 when they most needed them ; and that the dirt itself, matted 

 among their hair, assisted in retaining the warmth. These were 

 all philosophical reasons, which did not quite convince me of the 

 wisdom and expediency of this mode of managing. The last 



