Chap. Vir. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 295 



ley for diftlllatlon. I am inform -d, by a correfpondent I have in 

 Manchefter, that there is as much ground employed, about rhat town 

 and Birmingham, in raifmg barley for making fpirits, as would pro- 

 duce corn fufficient to maintain 10,000 people every year. 



Another reafon is the great number of horfes that are maintained in 

 England ; for which purpofe a great part of the land, and of the very 

 heft land, is kept in grafs. Befides the grafs, which is employed in 

 the pafture of To many horfes, they confume a great deal of oats, 

 without which horfes can do very little work. And this is the diffe- 

 rence betwixt them and oxen, who get no corn, and yet can do a 

 great deal of work, particularly in the plough : For which purpofe 

 they only were employed by the Romans, and not horfes * ; a; id the 

 fame, 1 am told, is the cafe in Italy at prefent. Whereas in Eng- 

 land, the whole work of hufbandry is done by horfes, nor do 1 re- 

 member ever to have feen or heard of an oxen-plough in England : 

 Which is the more extraordinary, that they have a race of working 

 oxen, one of the beft, I believe, that is in Europe ; I mean thofe 

 that are bred in Lancalhire. Of this race, 1 harve a breed wliich I 

 employ in ploughing ; and with two of thefe oxen, I make as good 

 Vvork, and as much of it, in the fame timer, as any of my neighbours 

 with two horfes : And 1 employ them not only m the plough, but 

 in carriages, which we call wains in Scotland. Witb a couple 

 of thefe oxen, I have had a loaded wain drawn 15 miles in a day, 

 and the wain brought back again the lame day : And this they did 

 three times a week. Now, I do noe think tliat the common working 

 horfes could do more. Yet, even \n Lancafliire, where thofe oxen 

 are bred, the farmers do not employ them in ploughing; but commonly 



plou,:h 

 * There is a palTage m Horace, which fliows that liorfcs were as little ufed by the 

 Romans for ploughing, as cattle were for the I'atldle ; for fpeaking of men tliat dcfircd 

 to do what they were not fit for, he compares them to an ox that wanted to be fad- 

 died and ridden, and to a horie that wanted to plough. 



Optat epixippia bos pi^er, optat arare caballus. 



Epift. 14. lib. I. 



