106 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
fowls he came with education to be the protector and shep- 
herd of them. He could be taught to work also, tho too 
small to be of value where large beasts of burden are available; 
yet that stocky dog, the turnspit, was developed to operate 
the treadmill. Heisa draft animal in arcticlands; there his 
flesh also serves to tide over many a famine, and his furry 
coat is used for clothing. It is only in our cities, where 
removed from the ways of nature, and subject to too much 
coddling, and developed in freak varieties, that he has become 
a stupid and useless nuisance. 
Dogs are subservient to their masters in both sexes; while 
the males of the larger domesticated beasts, after centuries of 
care and training, remain dangerous beasts still. 
One of the greatest advances in agri- 
culture came with the domestication of 
the cattle-kind, and their use as draft 
Fic. 50. Ox yoke: our animals. Turning the soil with a 
chief symbol of servitude. 2 
sharpened stick was, to the early 
planter, a sore task, and a slow one. When the stick was 
exchanged for a plow, and the great strength of the ox 
was set to draw it, then tillage began on a larger scale. 
Then settled homes, and property in land, began to be 
developed. Nature equipped the cattle kind to serve us in 
many ways. She made them excellent producers of flesh and 
of milk, of hides and of horn. She made them hardy, and 
adaptable to a great variety of climate and of artificial condi- 
tions of life. She made them to live on such herbage as any 
meadow, wild or tame, offers. In no other beasts has she so 
combined usefulness in labor, docility, and productiveness. 
The horse has been one of man’s chief helpers along the 
road of progress. Next to the dog he has been man’s most 
intimate associate. He was admirably adapted by nature to 
supplement man’s physical powers. He was of the right size: 
not too small to carry a rider and not too large nor too 
