THE OX 



shoulders the mark of the proprietor is branded with 

 red-hot iron. 



1 'Over the same prairies gallop, heedless of bad 

 weather and proud of their freedom, horses de- 

 scended from those that the Arabs, once masters of 

 the south of France, left in these regions. They are 

 white in color, small, active, and skittish. Their 

 mouth knows not the bit, nor their hoof the shoe. 

 At harvest time they are led up from their pasture- 

 ground to tread the threshing-floor and thresh the 

 wheat. The work finished, they are set free again. 



"Of all our domestic animals the ox is certainly 

 the most useful. During its lifetime it draws the 

 cart in mountainous regions and works at the plow 

 in the tillage of the fields; furthermore, the cow 

 furnishes milk in abundance. Given over to the 

 butcher, the animal becomes a source of manifold 

 products, each part of its body having a value of 

 its own. The flesh is highly nutritious ; the skin is 

 made into leather for harness and shoes; the hair 

 furnishes stuffing for saddles ; the tallow serves for 

 making candles and soap; the bones, half calcined, 

 give a kind of charcoal or bone-black used especially 

 for refining sugar and making it perfectly white; 

 this charcoal, after being thus used, is a very rich 

 agricultural fertilizer ; heated in water to a high tem- 

 perature, the same bones yield the glue used by car- 

 penters; the largest and thickest bones go to the 

 turner's shop, where they are manufactured into 

 buttons and other small objects ; the horns are fash- 

 ioned by the maker of small-wares into snuff-boxes 



