USE OP OXEN. 153 



For the speed of an ox-team in the plough we might rely on the 

 numerous certificates of committees for the last twenty years, in 

 which our agricultural annals abound, from Boston in the north to 

 Baltimore at least going south. These testify in innumerable cases 

 to their ploughing live or six inches deep, an eighth of an acre tho- 

 roughly well, at the rate of an acre in four hours. Making the most 

 liberal allowance, however, for the favourable circumstances under 

 which the work has been done at this rate, and it may still be safely 

 assumed that a yoke of oxen, well trained, will turn over more than 

 an acre of strong land in eight hours. 



All that we have contended for is more than confirmed by the fol- 

 lowing testimony taken from a very interesting letter from Governor 

 Hill, dated 7th December, 1813, on the use of oxen in the lumbering 

 business in Maine. He says — "My own experience in this matter 

 is quite recent, and of course limited. I have at this time cattle of 

 my own raising, which, having beeri taught to step quick, and havino* 

 worked in the same team with horses, will side by side travel as fast 

 and plough as much in a day as the same number of horses. A pair 

 of these oxen will turn over with a plough that carries twelve inches 

 of the last year's corn or potatoe ground, or easy stubble land, from 

 one and a half to two acres in a day, working eight hours, four in 

 the forenoon and four in the afternoon. Oxen well fed with hay and 

 a portion of Indian corn or meal, will in the heat of summer stand it 

 to work daily from eight to ten hours." 



At the Exhibition of the Maryland Agricultural Society in 1823, 

 {quorum parsfui), in the view of hundreds of spectators, an ox-team 

 started in competition with five horse-teams, and was the second in 

 completing an equal quantity of ground, and would have been the 

 first if the horse-team had cleared out the middle furrow ; but sup- 

 posing that when ready to start the horse has a little the advantage 

 of foot, it is to be considered that for small jobs and sliort bouts his 

 competitor can be more quickly hitched up, and the work despatched 

 by the time the horse would be geared: — such cases as we have 

 stated abound in all the accounts of the proceedings of agricultural 

 societies. A writer in the Memoirs of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Society, speaking to a community who neither cou-ld nor would be 

 deceived on a matter so well understood by, and so deeply interesting 

 to them, says — " The principal argument of the advocates for the 

 cultivation by horses in IMaryland seems to be the superior speed of 

 the horse. Now this must proceed from an imperfect training of the 

 cattle. With us our cattle will plough an acre of ground much belter, 

 and in as sliort a time, as a pair of horses would do it, unless they 

 can trot their horses in the plough ; so they will get in a ton of hay 

 in as short a time." Here we are well persuaded the sagacious 

 writer hits the nail on the head, when he suggests that the objection 

 on the score of speed must arise from an '''■imperfect training <f the 

 cattky He must possess an imperfect knowledge of the difference 

 between the habits of the New England and the Southern ploughman 



