Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTLTIE. 



119 



enough, are not so steady as oxen, which are more 

 patient also, and with which you may send the 

 plough-share donDii without any of the fretting and 

 unequal pulling, or jerking, that you have to en- 

 counter with horses. And, as to the slow pace of 

 the ox, it is the old story of the tortoise and the 

 hare. If I had known in England, of the use of 

 oxen, what I have been taught upon Long Island, 

 I might have saved myself some hundreds of pounds 

 a year. I ought to have followed Tull in this as 

 in all other parts of his manner of cultivating land. 

 But, in our country, it is difficult to get a plough- 

 man to look at an ox. In this Island the thing is 

 done so completely and so easily, that it was, to me, 

 quite wonderful to behold. To see one of these 

 Long-Islanders going into the field, or orchard, at 

 sun rise, with his yoke in his hand, call his oxen 



to attract the appetite of the ox, you have only to put on a 

 muzzle. This is what Mr. Tull did ; for, though we ought 

 not to muzzle the ox " as he treadeth out the coin," we may 

 do it, even for his own sake, amongst other consideration?;, 

 when he is assisting us to bring the ci'op to perfection. 



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