308 



OX 



ox 



sometimes unavoidably happens, 

 their necks are apt to becomt- sore. 

 To prevent this, a httle tallow 

 should be rubbed on the parts of 

 the yoke which lie upon their 

 necks, and also upon the bows. 



When steers come to be four 

 years old, they have one circular 

 ring at the root of their horns, 

 at tive two rit)gs, and one ring is 

 added each year; so that if you 

 would know the age of an ox, 

 count the rings on one of his horns, 

 and add three, which amounts to 

 the true number of his years. It 

 is the same in a bull, and a cow. 

 In very old cattle, these rings are 

 sometimes rather indistinct. 



When an ox has completed his 

 eighth year he should be worked 

 no longer, but be turned off to 

 fatten. His flesh will not be so 

 good, if he be kept longer. A 

 little blood must be taken from 

 him, that he may fatten the faster. 



A valuable paper "On the Ad- 

 vantages of Oxen in preference to 

 Horses," by the Hon. Timothy 

 Pickering, was published in the 

 Massachusetts Repository and 

 Journal for July, 1820, vol. VI. 

 No. 2., from which the following is 

 extracted : 



" 1 have been inclined to enter- 

 tain the opinion (perhaps an erro- 

 neous one) that oxen might be 

 trained (beginning with their first 

 acquaintance with the yoke) to a 

 greater quickness of movement 

 than is common ; and that this 

 might be rendered habitual. I 

 have seen a pair of oxen in a 

 plough keep pace with another 

 plough drawn by a pair of horses. 

 And Sir John Sinclair, in his ac- 



count of the Improved Scottish 

 Husbandry, mentions two distin- 

 guished farmers of the name of 

 Walker, who, contrary to the ge- 

 neral practice of their neighbours, 

 persisted in the use of ox-teams as 

 protitable on their farms. Two 

 oxen, harnessed like horses in a 

 plough, performed the same labour, 

 without losing a turn. After the 

 experience of twenty years, these 

 farmers pronounced oxen tit for 

 every agricultural labour, travel- 

 ling on hard turnpike roads ex- 

 cepted. 



" It would seem that horse har- 

 ness is generally, if not universally 

 used fcr oxen in Scotland, the col- 

 lars being reversed. Sir John 

 Sinclair says, ' the principal objec- 

 tion to the use of oxen is the diffi- 

 culty of shoeing them.' The fa- 

 cile mode of shoeing oxen in New- 

 England would remove that objec- 

 tion." 



In a letter, published on the 

 next page of the same work, Mr. 

 Pickering gives the testimony of 

 an "experienced farmer of Penn- 

 sylvania, whose prejudices were 

 opposed to the use of oxen for la- 

 bour, and where horses, with very 

 few exceptions, constitute the far- 

 mers' teams. This farmer, Mr. 

 William Ashford, in a letter to 

 John Vaughan, Esq. says : — 

 " There is another thing in which 

 1 was wrong in not taking your 

 advice, viz. not keeping oxen in- 

 stead of horses: this spring all my 

 horses became sick, and I was 

 forced to buy a pair of oxen. 1 

 supposed I should be tired of them ; 

 but on the contrary I am tired of 

 horses ; as I find that with my two 



