of the people of Britain from the earliest 

 times. It is not a little curious to reflect 

 that the animal which formed the very 

 backbone of our ancestors' independence — 

 on which our forefathers depended for their 

 strength and prowess In the Art of W^ar, 

 Is the animal on which we depend to 

 carry on the operations of Agriculture and 

 Commerce — the arts of peace. It must not 

 be forgotten that the use of the horse In 

 agriculture is comparatively modern. In 

 E no-land until the middle ao-es the work of 

 the farm and almost all heavy draught work 

 was performed by oxen. These animals 

 were In common use for farm work until the 

 latter half of the last century. ^Arthur 

 Youno' in his General View of the Aoi'i- 

 cttlture of Lineolnshire. written in 1799, 

 mentions a farm he visited where he saw 

 "two (oxen) and a horse draw home in a 

 waoforon as o-ood loads of corn as are com- 

 mon In Suffolk with three horses." He says 

 further, "about Grantham many oxen have 

 been worked, but all have left off : once they 

 were seen all the way from Grantham to 

 Lincoln, now scarcely any ; a pair of mares 

 and one man will do as much work as four 

 oxen and two men. . . . On the Wolds 

 most farmers have some oxen for workino-, 



