AND LOWER EGYPT. 2J3 



In speaking of the best species of fodder, an 

 opportunity offers of speaking a few words on the 

 kind *j( animals most valuable to agriculture. 

 The ox is, without controversy, of all domestic 

 animals, the one which renders the most import- 

 ant services to man. Among a warlike and con- 

 quering people, the horse will be placed in the 

 first rank; bat that nation will be neither rich 

 nor happv. With a sage nation, which considers 

 agriculture as the real source of public prosperity, 

 the ox will have the preference. Behold that 

 horse so stately ; with what rapidity he scours the 

 plain ! what agility, what majesty in all his move- 

 ments ! His eyes sparkle, his mouth whitens 

 with foam ; extended nostrils scarcely leave' the 

 passage free for a burning and interrupted snort- 

 ing ; he seems to partake of the ardour of the war- 

 rior who had subjected him to the bridle. Both 

 the one and the other present, no doubt, a very 

 imposing spectacle; but neither the one nor the 

 other is capable of extracting his subsistence out 

 of the bowels of the earth ; it is the fruit of the 

 painful efforts of that poor drudge, whom you 

 perceive in the back-ground, bending oppressedly 

 over a ploughshare dragged forward by oxen, 

 which modestly animate the courage and the con- 

 stancy of labour; he it is who forces the earth, 

 by tearing it asunder, to yield productions always 



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