122 OP LIVE STOCK. 



able for ploughing. On turnip farms they may be put to 

 grass for fattening, as soon as the important season of tur- 

 nips is over. 



Mr Stewart of Hillside is of opinion, that bullocks will 

 not only answer well for working a threshing-mill, but that 

 they may be used to advantage in other work about a farm, 

 provided that two or more pair of horses are kept for per- 

 forming distant carriages. He breaks his bullocks at two 

 years old, giving them only light work, and so moderately, 

 as not to prevent their growth. It is easier at that early 

 age to correct their faults, and to get the better of any bad 

 habits into which some of them are apt to fall, than after- 

 wards. At three years old, they will draw half a ton of po- 

 tatoes, for two or three miles ; at four years old, Mr Stewart 

 has tried a pair of them, in competition with twenty horse- 

 ploughs, greatly to the credit of the oxen. They are in all 

 respects yoked and driven as horses, both in ploughs and 

 carts. 



Mr John Shirreff states, that in several parts of Aber- 

 deenshire, he saw oxen-ploughs do as much work as horse 

 ones, a pair in each ; and he is convinced, that they will be 

 found equal to horses in the plough, provided they be al- 

 lowed a sufficient space of time, between their yokings or 

 journeys, when they are worked twice a-day, to ruminate. 

 This might easily be obtained, by going out very early in 

 the morning, which would admit of a considerable interval 

 between the yokings. If the same work could be done by 

 oxen as by horses, why should not the same food be allow- 

 ed them, if it is found really necessary ?* 



* It is recommended by an intelligent correspondent, to gwe working 

 oxen in mid-day some oat or barley meal. The ox would probably go to 

 rest as soon as he had eat it. 



