THE FARM OF THE FIRST MINISTER. 1 3 



roots that, when drawn to its final grip, its pull was an upward 

 and onward twist. 



After these preliminaries, the slow, steady pull of four good 

 seven and a half feet oxen, with heads slightly lowered, as they 

 straightened themselves horizontally under the guidance of a 

 skillful teamster, sufficed to extract and lay prone upon the 

 ground the most formidable clumps of these intruders. 



You must pardon him, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- 

 men, if the present owner of the First Minister's Farm just here 

 and now, confesses to a love for a good yoke of oxen. There 

 are few finer types of animated substantiality than a mild-eyed, 

 clean-faced ox, possessed of a head surmounted with a comely 

 pair of horns, behind which a strong neck and shoulders develop 

 into a straight back and well-rounded body, terminating in deep 

 hind quarters, and a well-inserted tail ; the whole supported by 

 four muscular and well-formed legs. 



Mrs. Austin, his daughter, tells us that that sharp-witted 

 English divine, the late Sidney Smith, kept a four-ox team, 

 and gave to the animals composing it appropriate names. 1 Of 

 the first yoke, he named one " Tug," and the other " Lug." 

 Of the second, he called one " Haul," and his mate " Crawl " ; 

 names quite as significant as are those of Bright, and Berry, and 

 Buck, and Broad, so common with us. 



Daniel Webster also loved oxen." 2 It has been said that one 

 of his latest earthly enjoyments, after he had gone down to his 

 Marshfieid farm to die, was to sit in his doorway and look ad- 

 miringly into the honest faces of his oxen, as they stood before 

 him, and to lavish upon them the noble affection, which, con- 

 tracted in youth upon his father's farm, twenty miles below us, 

 grew stronger with his years, and was as lasting as his life. 



Remote be the day when cattle husbandry shall be banished 

 from the farms of our beloved state. " Let that day be dark- 

 ness ; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light 

 shine upon it." 3 



1 Life of Sidney Smith, Vol. 1, p. 145. 



2 Harvey's Reminiscences of Daniel Webster, pp. 276-278. 

 s Job, 3:4. 



