MANAGEMENT OF TEAMS ON FARM AND ROAD. 263 



might be heard all over the farm ; these would rush them for 

 all they were worth for an hour or two until they were reeking 

 with foam and sweat, and then stop them half an hour or more 

 at a time, letting them stand all the while on a draw with 

 traces taut and bracing in the collar, while they rested sit- 

 ting on the plowbeam ; and perhaps when the dinner bell rang 

 they would bring them to the barn so heated that they could 

 not be watered or fed for half an hour. Such teamsters, — if 

 by such name they may be called, — will use up a good team 

 in an incredibly short time, as I know by observation. 



Some teamsters will annoy and fret a good team with spirit 

 and mettle more by constant yelling and swearing at them — 

 and take more out of them in this manner — than will all the 

 work they are able to accomplish. 



In the spring of 1894, I hired a young man from Ohio to 

 work for me for the season, and gave him a good team to 

 work. Both horses were well-bred, and belonged to the 

 American trotting family, both were full of life and spirit, 

 were in the best of health, and in excellent condition. They 

 were both intelligent and good dispositioned animals, but 

 rather nervous ; both were willing to do lots of work, doing it 

 cheerfully, steadily, and pleasantly. 



This young man commenced bawling and swearing at his 

 team from the very start. "We could hear his foul language 

 all over the farm and into the house, even ; not only that but 

 he soon became a neighborhood nuisance through his loud 

 swearing at one of the very best teams ever hitched to a plow 

 or elsewhere. He had lungs like an ox and the voice of a fog- 

 horn. I cannot now see why I should have kept him for a 

 month, but I did, for he was a good worker for the times, and 

 I suppose I thought that by reasoning and talking with him I 

 might reform him in the manner of using a team, — but it 

 was of no use. I could not change his methods, and so I sent 

 him away. I then engaged the services of a mild-mannered 

 young man (a graduate of a commercial college) to work this 

 same team. He soon proved himself to belong to the chronic 



