132 AGRieUIiTURAL ESSAYS. 



SO as to equal horses, both in the plough and in the waggon: 

 that the people of Malabar use no other animal for the plough, 

 nor for burdens ; and that about Pondichery, no beasts of bur- 

 den are to be seen but oxen. He^urther remarks, that if oxen 

 were more generally used, the article of beef, candles, and 

 leather, three essential necessaries of life, would become much 

 cheaper. In some parts of Great-Britain, they are used sin- 

 ^\y in carts, and two in a plough, with cords, without a driver. 

 It has been observed by Mr. Livingston, of New- York, that if 

 we may argue the utility of a practice,, from its extent, we must 

 prefer drawing by the horns, to any other mode ; that nine 

 tenths of Europe make their cattle draw in this way, and from 

 what he had seen of this performance, he was persuaded it was 

 to be preferred to the yoke. He observes, that a bull's strength 

 appears to be placed in his neck, and in drawing in this way, 

 the whole of it is exerted ; his motion is not impeded, or his 

 skin chafed, as it is by the yoke." 



In the mountains of Savoy, he observes, he saw many cattle, 

 chiefly cows, ^ drawing by the horns, not in carts, but in wag- 

 gons. He observes, however, that our cows are in general 

 inuch smaller than those usually worked in Europe. That al- 

 though yokes are used in some parts of Italy, they differ from 

 ours. Instead of bows, they have four flat pieces of wood 

 which hang from each side of the yoke, and are about ten mch- 

 es long, and hollowed so as to fit the sides of the neck, and so 

 thick as to admit a rope or chain to pass through them, by which 

 they are fixed to the yoke ; and each pair of tkem are united 

 by a chain or rope under the oxen's neck. The draft, in this 

 case, he tjbserves, is by the top of the shoulders only, and that 

 he believes it is to be preferred to our bows on that accouot, 

 because the bow, by pressing the shoulder blade, impedes the 

 motion of the animal. For holding back, whether thoy draw 

 by these yokes, or by the horns, the end of the whole projects 

 considerably by the heads of the c .ttle, and teems up very 

 much. To this is fixed a leather strsp that goes round the 

 horns of the oxen, so that they keep back the weight by the 

 horns, and with much more esse than ours do by twisting 

 their necks. In England they ere v/orked in a harness, which 

 were it not more expensive and more troublesome, it is said, 

 ought to be preferred to the method practised here. The 



* This practice, and raany others, which the American farmer 

 may be disposed to deride, though in some future period of our his- 

 tory, his circumstances may render it expedient to adopt from ne- 

 cessity, if from no other cause. 



