1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



73 



OXEN AGAINST HORSES FOR FARM 

 WORK. 



EXPERIENCE OF MR. GEO. DEWEY, OF UAXOVER, N. II. 



Horse teams upon the flirm with good rigging 

 make Kuch a fine appearance that many take a 

 great fancy to them. And sucli persons generally 

 manage in some way or other to persuade them- 

 selves that they are much more serviceable and 

 more profitable than oxen. On this subject the 

 experience of our friend Mr. Dewey is well worth 

 considering. 



First Cost. — In the first place, the cost of a good 

 span of working horses, says Mr. D., is at least 

 twice the cost of a good yoke of oxen. And the 

 wagons, harnesses, and other rigging necessary, 

 will cost more than twice as much aa for oxen ; 

 $32G will not be more than enough to purchase 

 two y<)ung and good working horses, with a wagon, 

 and cart, and rack, and other suitable equipments, 

 while the sum of $100 will provide a choice yoke 

 of oxen, and a cart and wheels, and rack, and all 

 else necessary for them in ordinary farm work. 



Cost of Keeping. — Then the cost of keeping 

 horses is well known to he considerably more than 

 the cost of keeping o.xen, even if the latter are ever 

 so well taken care of. The blacksmith's bill is sure 

 to be twice as much upon the horses, and then the 

 wear and tear, and breaking of tools will go high- 

 er still. Horses are liable to numerous casualties. 

 They get chafed, lame, sick, or something else, ten 

 times where a yoke of oxen is troubled once. If 

 the horses are at all active and spirited as they 

 should b*, they cannot well be trusted to any but 

 a choice, careful teamster. Besides, hired hands 

 are very apt to make them go sometimes with much 

 more than useful speed. Now and then a horse is 

 unharnessed from tlie plow where he has been hard 

 at work" in the field, and put upon the very top of 

 his speed to the store, a mile or two off, to get a 

 pipe or plug of tobacco, or some such indispensable 

 article. 



Service Done. — Oxen will do all kinds of farm 

 work well, and many things altogether better than 

 horses. For instance, starting out manure, haul- 

 ing rocks, getting out wood, Mr. D. says that a 

 strong yoke of oxen will do as much as a span of 

 horses, if well kept, and oxen must be well kept 

 to be profitable. Give the oxen the same keeping 

 as the horses and they will follow them in plowing 

 any length of time, provided the furrows be oi 

 equal depth, and they will do this through any 

 weather, except the very warmest. The great 

 fault of those who complain of the slowness of ox- 

 en, and their want of strength and endurance, ie 

 that they do not keep their oxen well. And an- 

 other point'of great consequence is, that the oxen 

 are put to work at a very early age, and before 

 they have had time to gain their proper size and 

 strength. Horses do not so often have their early 

 growth checked in this way. Besides, calves are 

 often so meanly fed that they are greatly stinted 

 by that also. 



Keeping. — They should be kept so as to be al- 

 ways fit for the butcher. Mr. D. has a farm of 

 150 acres, 40 of which is in tillage. He uses no 

 other cattle for labor except one yoke of large ox- 

 en. They are so kept and used that they are fit 

 for the Imtcher through the hardest of the work. 

 During the first part of the winter, till March, they 

 get hay in the morning, oat straw at noon, and 



corn fixlder at night. Later in the season they 

 are fed with a peck of meal per day, with chaffer 

 cliopped hay, sometimes moist^in addition, and a 

 bushel of turnips twice a week. The meal is made 

 from corn and cobs — two bushels of cobs and one 

 bushel of corn on the cobs, and perhaps a bushel 

 in ten or twelve, of oats, are mixed ground to- 

 gether. Cattle do not feed so well on hay or on 

 grain alone, as on a mixture. Vegetables are of 

 great service to make them healthy. When Mr. 

 D. fats cattle he gives them daily a bundle of 

 green corn fodder in the summer and fall till the 

 frost comes, and then green turnips and beets 

 thinned out of the field, and afterwards a bushel of 

 turnips and a peck of meal, like that above men- 

 tioned, till sold. 



TuE Profit. — Allowing well fed oxen to be just 

 about as serviceable as horses, besides the extra 

 cost in the beginning, the repair of tools, the extra 

 expense of slioeing, risk of lameness and disease, 

 and the great care needful in managing, there are 

 other things that increase the profit of oxen. The 

 manure they make is more valuable. The best 

 kept horses v.ill decrease in value $10 annually, 

 take one year with another, while oxen will in- 

 crease in value. Mr. D. never buys a yoke of oxen 

 till about six years old. If they do not prove 

 just the team desired, he sells them in a year and 

 gets another pair. They will do well till 12 years 

 old. His experience for the last 20 years is as 

 follows : where is presented the first cost of the 

 oxen, the number of years kept on the farm, and 

 the price sold at. And during that time the oxen 

 have been the only team for farm Avork, and have 

 not in all been turned out from labor for the pur- 

 pose of fattening, three weeks during the 20 

 years. 



Coat. Time kept. Sold at. 



$ 72 About 6 years $115 



70... " 1 " 95 



10.5 " 5 " 9« 



70 " i " 98 



85 ' 3 " 112 



60 " 3 " 110 



£0 " 1 " 105 



$573 



$731 

 ,..573 



Cost 



Profit $158 



Granite Farmer. 



DON^T TAKE THE PAPERS ! 



In making an excursion, the other day, a little 

 out of the State, we indulged ourselves as usual, 

 in taking a hasty survey of the farms, buildings, 

 orchards, &c., as we passed along. The glance 

 that may he obtained, as rapidly as one rushes 

 along in a car, is oftentimes a pretty good index 

 to the whole establishment. And we have some- 

 times thought we could write a tolerably correct 

 description of the habits of the inmates of an es- 

 tablishment by merely passing the premises. 



One homestead we saw, worthy the age when 

 cast-off hats and pantaloons ornamented the win- 

 dows. The house had been erected with fair pro- 

 portions and painted white; the elements had 

 wasted the paint, leaving only patches here and 

 there to indicate its original color, while the fences 

 were scattered in every direction, like a platoon of 

 routed troopers. The barn stood awry, rickety, 



