ECONOMY OF FARMING. 



41 



According to all experience it follows, as to the increase of weight from all the given 

 quantities of fodder: 



1. The daily increase of weight for the before-mentioned weight of a fattening 

 ox is 0.75 to 5 lbs. / 



2. On the 100 lbs. of the entire fodder, (conservation and melioration-fodder) it is 

 2, 3 to 10 lbs. ; and on 100 lbs. of melioration-fodder, on the other hand 9 to 20 lbs. 



3. The weight of the beast and the cash-product of the increase rises with the 

 increase of melioration-fodder in so profitable proportions, that even the dearest 

 means of fodder themselves, as melioration-fodder, show themselves so much the 

 more lucrative, as exactly the richest in nourishment, and also animalize themselves, 

 and therefore pass into direct usefulness the sooner, and with an unlike greater part 

 of their natural weight, than the other voluminous materials of fodder. — Tr.] 



8. Finally, we must take into consideration the amount of labor which 

 horses and oxen can perform, in a given period, if we would decide re- 

 specting the one or the other. 



Because horses perform more in the same time than oxen, and are better adapted 

 for many kinds of work; so it not rarely happens that labor is carried on cheaper 

 with horses ; a person gains more in the less number of the horse-teams and the 

 men required for them, compared with the greater number of the ox-teams, than 

 the cost of their keeping, and the interest of the out-lying capital. 



If the ox-team in a given time performed as much work as the horse-team, it 

 would unquestionably be cheapest to use them for all the work of the farm, and quit 

 the use of horses wholly ; but because oxen are much slower in drawing, and a yoke 

 of them, if they are strong and well-trained, will accomplish in favorable circum- 

 stances only 4 or + of what a good span of farm-horses will; therefore if the keeping 

 of oxen is not unusually cheap, on account of the increased number of teams and of 

 men required to take care of them, there will be greater expense with oxen, than with 

 horses. 



[This question has been much discussed by different writers in Germany. Thaer, 

 Vol. I. p. 71, thus states the substance of the arguments for and against. 



" ffarfies have an undeniable preference in the following particulars : 



"They are suitable for all and every kind ofwork of land-husbandry, in all ways, and 

 in al! weathers. One. therefore when he keeps only horses, is not obliged to choose 

 out work for them, but can use his whole team for any business that occurs, and leave 

 no part of it to stand still. 



" They accomplish every kind of work more rapidly, and are more constant. One 



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