[December, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4,51 
Turning the Yoke. 
Our engraving represents a person in a 
quandary. His oxen have turned their yoke, 
and he can not understand how those placid- 
looking creat¬ 
ures, so innocent¬ 
ly chewing their 
cuds, could per¬ 
form such a trick. 
But they under¬ 
stand it. It is 
not the first time 
they have done 
it, and they are 
very well satis¬ 
fied with their 
success so far. 
Oxen are in no 
wise stupid, and 
remember their 
successes and 
practice upon 
them. We have 
owned a yoke 
of cattle that 
would turn their 
yoke upon every 
op p o r t u n i t y. 
They had evi¬ 
dently learned 
the trick during 
their training, for 
they went to 
work methodically, and the result was a great 
surprise to us at first. But we studied out the 
matter and found a simple preventive. The 
manner in which the yoke is turned is as fol¬ 
lows : One ox or both move their hindquarters 
outwards, at the same time bringing their 
heads together. One ox (generally the off ox 
does this) then puts his head under his mate’s 
neck and swings himself quickly around along¬ 
side of him on the nigh side. The off ox is 
then upon the nigh side, and the yoke is bottom 
upwards. When 
this has been done, 
the ox which has 
done the mischief, 
or both of them, 
manifest an intense 
satisfaction, and 
their gentle and 
innocent look dis¬ 
arms all resent¬ 
ment. But they 
can never be made 
to reverse the pro¬ 
ceeding. They must 
be unyoked, and 
herein lies the se¬ 
cret of the perform¬ 
ance. Once being 
unyoked, the suc¬ 
cess of the trick 
causes it to be ever 
after remembered, 
and when they 
want to be unyoked 
they take this in¬ 
convenient method 
of informing their 
driver of the fact. 
To prevent its first occurrence, care should be 
taken in breaking them not to allow them to 
spread their hind-quarters outwards, nor to per¬ 
mit them to lower their heads below the yoke. If 
they have already learned the trick its repetition 
may be prevented by buckling stout straps 
around their horns and attaching to the straps 
a piece of wood similar to a single-tree from a 
wagon with a ring in each end. This will 
effectually prevent the oxen from bringing then 1 
heads together, or one ox from passing his head 
WATCHING A FLOCK OF TURKEYS. 
beneath that of the other. Careless driving is 
the cause, rather than the vice of the oxen. 
. Watching the Turkeys. 
The turkey is known to be the wildest of all 
our domestic birds, yet is capable of a greater 
amount of taming than it has usually had 
credit for. When properly treated, turkeys 
will learn to come at the call, and if a little 
communities is their tendency to wander and 
forage upon the neighbors’ fields. Though they 
do not scratch, yet a large flock of turkeys may 
do much damage to young crops by trampling 
them down. Hence, in such localities, it is 
common to em¬ 
ploy a boy or 
girl to drive the 
birds to their 
feeding range, 
and keep watch 
of them to pre¬ 
vent their stray¬ 
ing to the neigh¬ 
boring fields, and 
to keep them to¬ 
gether until it is 
time to return 
home. Nowhere 
are the docility 
and intelligence 
of the turkey 
more decidedly 
shown than in 
the flocks gath¬ 
ered by the deal¬ 
ers in some of 
the W estern 
States. There 
the dealers in tur¬ 
keys go from 
farm to farm and 
collect a few at 
each place, and 
drive the whole flock along just as cattle and 
swine are driven. We are told by those en¬ 
gaged in this business that a few old gobblers 
take the lead and seem to understand their du¬ 
ties, both at starting out iu the morning and 
in yarding at night, and that a flock of these 
birds is as little trouble to drive .along the 
road day after day as a herd of beeves. 
OXEN TURNING THE YOKE. 
pains be taken at first they can be made to go 
to a particular roost at night. When the young 
first begin to wander they need watching, not 
only to protect them from hawks and other 
enemies, but to prevent straggling. The great 
difficulty in keeping turkeys in thickly settled 
Exportation of Cattle. —The fact that 
live cattle are now exported from New York 
to Glasgow is full 
of significance. 
That the trade is 
profitable a n d 
promises to become 
permanently estab¬ 
lished is a fact of 
great interest to our 
farmers as well as 
to the consumers of 
beef. Pork has long 
been an article of 
export, and we are 
satisfied that it 
should be so. The 
British laborer 
without our bacon 
would be reduced 
to. a diet of pota¬ 
toes with occa¬ 
sional feasts of 
bread. With our 
abundance of more 
wholesome a n d 
palatable food we 
can spare much of 
our pork, which is 
simply our surplus 
corn in a more portable and merchantable 
shape. But when we send abroad our beef we 
trench upon our own needs. Our city people 
are paying 80 cents a pound for second rate 
steaks. The farmer has every inducement to 
raise cattle, as prices are not likely to decrease. 
