ITS USE IN THE MANUFACTURES. 199 



and its milk — both of which are so needful for our comfort that we 

 almost forget to think about them at all — we derive very great benefit 

 from its powers while living, and from many portions of its body when 

 dead. 



In many parts of England, Oxen are still employed in agricultural 

 labor, drawing the plough or wagon with a slow but steady ploughing 

 gait. The carpenter would find himself sadly at a loss were his supply 

 of glue to be suddenly checked by the disappearance of the animal, 

 from whose hoofs, ears, and hide-parings the greater part of that use- 

 ful material is manufactured. The harness-maker, carriage-builder, 

 and shoemaker would in that case be deprived of a most valuable ar- 

 ticle in their trade ; the cutler and ivory-turner would lose a consider- 

 able portion of the rough material upon which they work ; the builder 

 would find his best plaster sadly impaired without a proper admixture 

 of cow's hair; and the practical chemist would be greatly at a loss for 

 some of his most valuable pro- 

 ductions if the entire Ox tribe 

 were swept from the earth. 

 Not even the very intestines 

 are allowed to be wasted, but 

 are employed for a variety of 

 purposes and in a variety of 

 trades. Sometimes the bones 

 are subjected to a process f 

 which extracts every nutri- ^■ 

 tious particle out of them, and ^- 

 even in that case the remain- 

 ing innutritious portions of ^^ ^^^' 

 the bones are made useful by being calcined, and manufactured into 

 the animal charcoal which has lately been so largely employed in many 

 of the arts and sciences. 



The Domestic Cow is too well known to need any detailed description 

 of form and color. Few persons, however, except those who have been 

 personally conversant with this animal, have any idea of its intelligent 

 and affectionate nature. 



As the Oxen, in common with the sheep, camel, giraffe, and deer, re- 

 quire a large amount of vegetable food, and are, while in their native 

 regions, subject to innumerable disturbing causes that would effectually 

 prevent them from satisfying their hunger in an ordinary manner, they 

 are furnished with a peculiar arrangement of the stomach and digestive 

 organs, by means of which they are enabled to gather hastily a large 

 amount of food in any spot where the vegetation is luxuriant, and to 

 postpone the business of mastication and digestion to a time when they 

 may be less likely to be disturbed. The peculiarity of structure lies 



