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and, whether they are applied to the purposes of 

 agriculture or not, it may be said that the profitable 

 culture of the ground depends in a great measure 

 upon the abundance of horses ; and no inconsiderable 

 portion of the superior fertility and consequent value 

 of the lands, immediately abutting on the principal 

 Hues of road, is owing to the number of horses which 

 are necessarily kept for the purposes of travelling 

 along those lines. It becomes, therefore, a question 

 of some importance whether, if rail-roads and steam- 

 carriages should ever be introduced as the principal 

 channels and powers of land-carriage, the country 

 might not thereby sustain a loss in the deterioration 

 of its soil, and the consequent diminution of its agri- 

 cultural produce, for whicn no rapidity of communi- 

 cation would compensate ; for we need not say, that 

 rapid carriage would be of little avail if there were 

 nothing to carry. 



It is indeed a truth at once demonstrative to the 

 eyes of every one who chooses to look fairly at it, 

 that the great triumph which British agriculture has 

 gained over the stubborn opposition of inferior soil 

 and wayw - ard climate, is owing more to the vast mul- 

 titude of horses in the country, than to almost any 

 other cause. At all events, the co-operating circum- 

 stances, such as improved implements and modes of 

 culture, and a better understanding of the nature and 

 character of the seasons, would have been unavailing 

 without this one. Nor are the evidences of the truth 

 of this few or difficult to be obtained. Any one who 

 is old enough to remember when, in the poorer dis- 

 tricts of the country (and it makes for the argument 

 that they lingered the longest there), oxen or steers 

 were employed to drag along the clumsy and crawling 

 plough, or the lumbering wain, must also have ob- 

 served with what strides fertility and improvement of 

 every kind came onward with the introduction of the 

 horse. So marked, indeed, has this been in some 

 districts, that it would almost tempt one to believe 

 that the tread of the solid hoof had something of the 

 fancied power of a magic wand about it ; and, that 

 the moment that it comes in sufficient number and 

 repetition, the golden harvest waves richly in the 

 autumnal wind, over slopes which were erewhile 

 clad with nothing but brown heather. In most parts 

 of England, the agriculture is owing chiefly to matters 

 of human arrangement, with which we have, in the 

 mean time, no concern, inferior, in proportion to the 

 natural advantages of the climate, to that of many 

 districts in the northern part of the island ; yet the 

 horse was introduced at so early a period that there 

 are scarcely any who remember the state of things 

 under ox cultivation, so as even to be able to contrast 

 it fairly with horse cultivation. But the writer of 

 this article remembers well a pretty extensive dis- 

 trict of North Britain, when it was in a great degree, 

 at least, cultivated by oxen. At that time wheat 

 was unknown ; and even barley was grown in small 

 quantities, and of the light upland kind, called bigg or 

 bere, which was feeble in the straw and poor in the 

 ear, and very generally so late in ripening that it 

 was caught standing by the heavy autumnal rains, 

 and sprouted, so that each ear looked like a tuft of 

 grass on the top of the stalk. The only other crop, 

 with the exception perhaps of a little patch of grey 

 field peas, consisted of oats, not unfrequently of 

 the black or bearded kind, in which the quantity of 

 farina is small and dark coloured ; the crops of these 

 were often so stunted that when full grown, they did 



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not cover the clods ; and it was not rare to find the 

 little shocks, which, though consisting of twelve 

 sheaves, were not bigger than hill sheep, standing 

 bleaching in the fields till Christmas. 



Some two dozen or two score years rolled on, bear- 

 ing the spring-tide of improvement upon their wings ; 

 and in process of time the ox disappeared from the 

 plough and the wain, and was served up at the table, 

 while the horse put his gallant shoulder to the labour of 

 the wheel. The consequence is, that at the present 

 time, the farmers of that very district depend mainly 

 on the wheat crops for the payment of their rents, or. 

 in supplement to that, to their barley crops : and the 

 greater part of the oats which they grow is used for 

 ihe feed of those noble animals which have, in truth, 

 been the main-spring of the whole improvement. 



Nor must it be supposed, that the introduction of 

 the horse as a labourer was the means of banishing the 

 ox ; for on the other hand, the breed of the cattle has 

 been greatly improved, and their numbers very much 

 multiplied ; so that we may say the horse has. to a 

 reat extent, been the benefactor of the ox, as well as 

 of the owner of both. And it is easy to see the 

 reason : with ox culture, the quantity of manure for 

 the arable land is comparatively small ; and as from 

 the rumination and more complete digestion of the ox, 

 the manure is in a more exhausted state, and does not 

 ferment, give out heat, and act as a stimulant like 

 that of the horse. Horses, in order to work properly, 

 cannot be fed wholly on pastures ; and upon a pasture 

 which will support and even fatten cattle, horses 

 would be starved. Besides, unmixed grain and suc- 

 culent food disorder the bowels of horses, and ren- 

 der them unfit for working. Owing to these circum- 

 stances, the horse must be, in great part at least, fed 

 in the stable ; and consequently, a great, deal of 

 nourishment for the land is accumulated. Not only 

 this, but the use of horses in agriculture renders it 

 necessary to cultivate grasses for animal food, as well 

 as the cereal grasses for the food of man, and the more 

 substantial dry-feed of the horse. Also, the intro- 

 duction of beans, which, though profitable only in 

 strong land, do not exhaust the strength of that land 

 nearly so much as wheat crops do, follow as part of 

 the system of cultivating the land by means of horses. 

 In short, the great quantity of manure, which, up 

 to a certain point at least, increases the value of the 

 land in a route of geometrical progression, lays the 

 foundation of a vast deal of vegetable cultivation and 

 of animal food. We owe to it not a little of the 

 successful culture of that prince of roots, the potato ; 

 and we may be said to owe wholly to it the culture 

 of the turnip, the carrot, and mangel wurzel, which, 

 in proportion to the breadth of land which they oc- 

 cupy, yield a greater quantity, and we may add a 

 better quality of food for animals than any other 

 known plants. 



With these, and the cultivated grasses and trefoils, 

 and the amelioration of the land by means of tares 

 and other plants, which may be cut down for green- 

 feed in the summer season, the horse has really 

 brought a mine of wealth about the farm ; and he 

 may be said to be a most efficient agent in feeding 

 evea the pigs and the poultry. 



It is unquestionable that the introduction of animat 

 food for general consumption, and of wheaten-bread 

 in the poorer districts, have followed in the proportion 

 of, and therefore have been produced by the intro- 

 duction of the horse as the principal labourer ; and, 

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