Practical Agriculture. 
629 = 5()3 
rhe usual method of feeding working-oxen is to give them 
saw and roots in winter, and grass in summer, with an occa- 
jinal allowance of corn during the busy season. When oxen are 
lught-in as two-year-olds, employed in doing summer tillage 
<ly, used to tread down straw into manure in winter, and 
fally sold out as four-year-olds, the common calculation is 
tit thev improve in value, and that their labour, though tedious 
{d generallv limited to a part of the year, is not expensive as 
cmpared with that of horses ; the keep of a team-bullock costing 
] ibably about half that of a farm-horse. 
The exigencies of the meat supply, and the ability of modern 
i (ling processes to mature cattle of refined breeds into two- 
^\r-old beef, are pressing to banish such animals altogether 
i m draught labour even in the few localities where ox-teams 
Ive longest held sway in the mechanical economy of the farm ; 
t? problem now occupying attention being that of superseding 
ti greatest possible proportion of costly animal power by yoking 
t! steam-engine to one after another of the heavy and light 
< lught-operations of agriculture. 
Farm-Horses. For every hundred acres cultivated in England Farm-horses, 
jd Wales about 4^ horses are enumerated as " horses used in 
jriculture, unbroken horses, and mares used solely for breeding." 
'le 830,U00 horses "used solely for agriculture" average about 
< or every hundred acres cultivated ; and as 15,000,000 acres 
<tof the total cultivated area of 27,000,000 acres are arable, 
t? number of farm-horses averages about 5i for every hundred 
;res arable. 
The number of horses kept on various kinds of soil and under 
♦3erent systems of husbandry, where high-class management 
:'evails, appears in the following examples. 
On a liffht-land farm under the five-course shift, having Number kept 
< o-fifths in corn, two-fifths in seeds, and one-fifth in roots, a 5° 
" ir of horses is required for every seventy or ninety acres, 
:cording to the level or steep contour of the fields and whether 
• 0 or more ploughings are given for the root-crops. 
On a clay-loam farm in Buckinghamshire under a six-course 
'tation, with roots and catch crops, the proportion of horses 
■pt is three to every sixty acres arable, three horses being used 
) a plough. 
On a Shropshire farm of sand-loam, with part stronger soil, 
ider the four-course system, there is a pair of horses for every 
xty-six acres. On selected medium-soil and light-land farms 
>mprising (3000 acres arable in various counties from Berkshire 
Yorkshire, the teams average one horse to every twenty-seven 
res. On selected heavy-land farms, embracing 15,000 acres 
