WORKING OXEN. 107 



last, if properly housed, almost indefinitely. The cost for 

 bedding and grooming and feed-cutters, blankets, etc., for the 

 ox, is comparatively nothing, and at the end of the year he is 

 quite as valuable as at the beginning. The relative expense of 

 the ox-cart, compared with that of the horse-cart, is also 

 largely in favor of the ox, while, all things considered, the 

 ox is the most valuable for this portion of farm-work. 

 Besides, the ox is rapidly gaining in value, if properly kept, 

 between the ages of four and seven years, and at the latter 

 'age, is quite as valuable as ever for beef. There is, more- 

 over, but little risk of loss from lameness or injury, and much 

 less liability to severe, acute attacks of disease. Contrast 

 with the yoke, the pair of harnesses, costing ten times as 

 much, and requiring from two to four dollars' yearly expense 

 in washing and oiling, and wearing out, on an average, in 

 about ten years. With the grooming and care of the ox, 

 compare the time spent on horses, the bedding and blankets, 

 the liability to lameness and disease (it being an admitted 

 fact that a perfectly sound horse is rare), and the fact, that 

 at last the ox is quite as valuable as ever, furnishing the best 

 of meat for our sustenance ; while the old horse, when his 

 usefulness is over, can only furnish his hide to the whip- 

 maker, to be used to torment his successors, and his carcase 

 for a grand feast for the crows and village curs. 



Admitting all the pleasure to be derived from the horse, 

 the pride which the ownership of a good horse produces, 

 and the varied comforts derived from his patient labor,. still, 

 a close computation of profit and loss for farm labor will 

 doubtless show a heavy balance in favor of the ox. There is 

 one other point to be presented. Our chief and most profit- 

 able business in farming, is dairying, which readily furnishes 

 all the facilities for raising the best of oxen for our own use, 

 while we are largely dependent upon Vermont or the West 

 for our horses ; and the difference in raising money to pay 

 out three or four hundred dollars for a pair of horses, and 

 the raising a pair of steers, the cost of growing which upon 

 our farms is hardly noticed, will be more seriously felt and 

 noticed as times grow harder, or the dollar more nearly 

 approaches its real value. 



In years gone by, the boys were given a pair of calves to 



