ON DRAUGHT OXEN. I3I 



dull and faint, and liable to fuch dangerous ac- 

 cidents, from beinsj over fatigued at work. 



In Holland I have obferved they keep their 

 cows curried as fine as racers, and I have even 

 been told they clothe them upon turning them 

 out ; and I think our labouring b'eafls ought to 

 be kept within doors in winter, fed with corn, 

 and dreffed in as careful a manner as our 

 horfes. 



The fair queftion is, does an additional an- 

 nual produft of corn throughout the ifland 

 refult from the labour of horfes, fufficient to 

 reimburfe their fuperior expence, and to coun- 

 terbalance the profit of fiaughtering the oxen, 

 after their period of labour fiiall have expired? 

 I (hould fuppo^e the negative of the propo- 

 fition moft probable, and that we 'are merely 

 facrificing to our prejudices, and to the vene- 

 rable idol cuftom; in ufing fuch multitudes of 

 draught horfes. Of the farther poifible im- 

 provement of the breed of oxen, in point of 

 aftivity, I fliall not helitate^ to fpeak with con- 

 fidence ; nor to aver, that I know many farms 

 (it is true the)^ are not in Norfolk or Suffolk) 

 the whole ploughing and carting bufinefs of 

 which might be to the full as well performed, 

 in all refpecis, by oxen, as it now is with 

 horfes. 



I lately obferved in one of the reviews [the 

 Britifli Critic3 in the article of a pamphlet of 



K 2 the 



