GREAT AGRICULTURAL WRITERS 147 



Tostock in Suffolk weighing 1,000 Ib. apiece, dead weight. 1 

 According to the records of Winchester College, the oxen sold 

 there in the middle of the century averaged, dressed, about 

 575 Ib.; in 1677, 35 oxen sold there averaged 730 Ib. * Some 

 kine,' it was said at the end of the century, ' have grown to be 

 very bulky and a great many are sold for 10 or 12 apiece ; 

 there was lately sold near Bury a beast for 30, and 'twas 

 fatted with cabbage leaves. An ox near Ripon weighed, 

 dressed, 13^ cwt.' 2 They were, of course, chiefly valued as 

 beasts of draught, and no doubt the one Evelyn saw in 1649, 

 'bred in Kent, 17 foot in length, and much higher than I 

 could reach,' was a powerful animal for this purpose. The 

 young ones were taught to draw by yoking two of them, 

 together with two old ones before and two behind, with a 

 man on each side the young ones, ' to keep them in order and 

 speak them fair,' for if much beaten they seldom did well : 

 for the first two or three days they were worked only three 

 or four hours a day, but soon they worked as long as the older 

 ones, that is from 6 to n, then a bait of hay and rest till i, 

 with work again till 5, at least in Lancashire. They were 

 kept in the yoke till nine or ten years old, then turned on to the 

 best grass in May, and sold to the butcher. 3 



1 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, v. 332. 

 8 Houghton, Collections for Improvement of Husbandry, i. 294. 

 3 Ibid., Collections for Husbandry and Trade (ed. 1728), iv. 336. 



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