108 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



raise, and their play-days were spent in making yokes and 

 fixing small carts and sleds, or in training their steers. 

 These occupations brought them as pleasant recreation at 

 home as boys can now find in at'empting to bring the farm 

 horse down to a three-minute gait, or in teaching the colt to 

 become a trotter ; while the expense in the first case was 

 but little, and in the latter includes a "new harness " and 

 trottiug-wagon, to say nothing of the gradual loss of interest 

 in home and its labors, till at last the farmer's boy concludes 

 that farming is too slow business for him, and leaves the old 

 home and its occupants to others' care, while he seeks an 

 easy fortune elsewhere. Your committee are decidedly of the 

 opinion that the society is doing much good in using various 

 methods to encourage the raising and using of oxen, and 

 hope that the means and methods used will always be produc- 

 tive of as good results as in the present year. 



