ECONOMY OF FARMING. 19 



winter, which remain long and hinder cultivation. 4. They furnish a bed for 

 weeds, which cannot be eradicated under them, and thus are propagated in the 

 fields. 5. They furnish a resting-place for insects and birds, &c. 6. They are in 

 the way of cultivation in ploughing, &c. 7. They hinder the passage from one field 

 to another, so that often a great circuit must be made to get at fields bordering on 

 them. 8. If made with ditches, they are often injurious from the standing water, &c. 

 On the other hand he points out the benefits : i. Universal experience shows that 

 inclosed fields have the greatest fertility ; this is owing to a number of reasons ; 

 fences keep in the warmth, &c. 2. They protect cattle as well as plants from rough 

 winds. 3. They retain moisture, which is more beneficial than prejudicial. 4. The 

 space they occupy as hedges, is more than counterbalanced by furnishing wood, &c. 

 The result of the comparison, he states to be : — 1. In moist soils, the soil may be injured 

 by fences, from the long retention of moisture ; for all dry sandy soils they are very 

 advantageous. 2, If the land is to be continually kept under the plough and yearly 

 planted, their advantage is less, and may be overbalanced by the lodgment they 

 give to weeds, &c. 3. If the field is to be used as a pasture or fodder-field for a rmmber 

 of years, their advantages far outbalance their disadvantages, as they protect the 

 cattle, &c. The different kinds are living and dead fences : dead, are walls in whole 

 or part of stone or earth, rails and posts, &.c. ; hving fences, are hedges, trees planted 

 and rails inserted, &c. Various plans have been suggested as to fencing the prairie 

 lands of our country most economically, both as regards outlay of labor and money, 

 &c., but none seems to promise equal success with that proposed by the Hon. H. L. 

 Ellsworth, Commissioner of Patents, and described in his last Report, for the year 

 1842. By this plan, there is a great saving of timber, and the mode practised is one 

 which requires no peculiar skill, while the implements are simple and cheap. It has 

 also been tried and found to answer the purpose. — Tr.] 



b. — OF THE LABOR OF BEASTS. 



1. Our usual beasts of labor are horses and oxen ; less so hulls and 

 cows. 



Why bulls are rarely employed for labor, and in what circumstances they may 

 serve for this purpose, we have already indicated while treating of the use of horned 

 cattle. Asses are sometimes indeed employed in Germany on farms, but nowhere for 

 the cultivation of land, but only for drawing or carrying moderate loads. 



[Our Author's remarks, to which he alludes, in Vol. II. p. 252, are as follows : " Be- 

 sides being employed for breeding and for her milk, the cow is also used for draught, 

 but only as a helper in need, and not for any length of time ; the laboring cow must 

 have more fodder than others, and will give less milk." " The employment of the 

 cows for ploughing and other labors of draught, appears to be profitable only in 

 very small farms, which beside two cows are able to keep no other cattle ; there the 

 loss of the milk may be made up by the labor afforded, but the labor must be reck- 

 oned higher than on great farms, because horses or oxen must be hired, and they 

 are not always to be procured when desired." Of the bull also he speaks on p. 

 253 : " The bull cannot be used to advantage as a beast of draught, because in the 

 early period, when employed as a coupling bull, he is too young and too weak for 

 hard work ; but later when no more employed as a coupler, he might render good 

 service as a beast of draught, being first castrated to make him tamer, and easier af- 

 terwards for fatting. The bull is usually of a very lively, and if not used with care 

 and kept tame, of a wild temperament, which cannot be yoked and will not be 

 guided at pleasure." 



Ho WITT, in his Rural Life of Germany, as well as other travellers, speaks of the 

 employment of the cow as a beast of labor. Veit. in Vol. II. p. 404, says, " Cows 

 are employed in Bavaria for work only on farms which are too small to keep and 

 employ fully a single yoke of cattle for labor. In Austria, they are used for labor on 

 many large farms with the best results. They perform not much less than working 

 oxen, and in respect to the loss ofmilk, by being strengthened in labor, it is of far less 

 consequence than many imagine, and not less or not much less than is the case on 

 remote or lean meadows without labor, if otherwise they have the necessary indul- 

 gence, and food, and care ; especially if they are used m a team which is changed, 

 and as far as possible for the lighter kinds of work." 



2. Whethei it is better to use horses or oxen in prosecuting the business 



