130 Comparison between Horses and Oxen, 



causes: 1. An increase of manure ; 2. A saving of food ;-^-and, 3. 

 Their improving in value, from the time when they begin to work, to 

 the time of their being sold. They are likewise less subject than 

 horses to sudden death, accidental injuries, and occasional maladies *. 

 The next points to be discussed, are, 1. In what description of 

 farms a proportion of oxen can be used to advantage ? and, 2. What 

 the number of oxen ought to be, where they are admissible ? 



1. Farms calculated for a Proportion of Oxen. 



Where oxen must be maintained with corn or hay, the feeding is 

 so very expensive, that it cannot be advantageous to employ them to 

 any extent. 



In the neighbourhood of towns also, where straw, and every spe- 

 cies of green food, AS turnips, grass, &c. are higher in price than at a 

 distance from them, the employment of draught oxen must prppor- 

 tionably be less profitable or advantageous-^. On the other hand, 

 there are few. situations better calculated for oxen, than farms distant 

 from market-towns, where putrescent manures cannot be purchased, 

 but where turnips can be raised in considerable quantities, because 

 that description of food is not only cheap, but is peculiarly condu- 

 cive to their health and improvement. On turnip-land farms, they 

 may likewise be employed, not only in ploughing, but in hoeing the 

 turnips, in carting cut grass for soiling, and for other agricultural pur- 

 poses about the farm. 



But the best description of farm, for the use of oxen, is, where 

 there is abundance of coarse and bulky herbage, favourable to the 

 breeding of cattle ; and where the land in occupation is so large, that 

 there is a regular succession of ploughing, (unless in frosty weather), 

 during the whole year J. On such a farm, oxen may be both reared, 

 and advantageously employed as working stock. 



2. Proportion of Oxen on a Farm. 



In regard to this point, practical farmers, who approve of a partial 

 use of oxen, do not materially differ. On one farm, where twenty 

 horses would be required for the whole labour, the proportion adopt- 

 ed is, sixteen horses and eight oxen. On a larger farm, the occupier 

 keeps twenty-two ploughs drawn by horses, and eight by oxen ; and 

 it is stated, that the proportion of oxen would be greater, were it not 

 for the necessity of long journeys, or carriage of grain to market. But 

 the most important examples on very large farms, were those of Mr 

 W T alker of Wooden, and Mr Walker of Mellendean, both strong ad- 

 vocates for the partial use of oxen. These gentlemen kept on their 

 farms, fifty work horses and' twenty-eight working oxen ; and they 

 calculated, that the expense saved on each plough worked by oxen, was 



* Farmer's Magazine, vol. xiv. p. 439. f Ibid. p. 434. 



| General Report of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 203. This observation, however, 

 is not applicable to the fen lands of England, where keeping and working brood 

 mares, for breeding dray and waggon horses, pays better than rearing and work- 

 ing oxen. Besides, on low fen land, (peaty), oxen cannot be reared in a 

 healthy state, owing to the scour to which they are subject. 



