The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1873-02-07
About Driving Oxen.

When l was boy, my father always
kept one or more OK teams, and several
spans of horses. Whenever the teams
were to be driven, my destiny always
was to manage the oxen, and let some
one else drive the horses, rs the driver
could always ride, while the driver with
the OK team had to foot it.
Boys liked to ride forty years ago
quite as well as they do at the present
time. More than this, when they drove
the oxen they took q heavier load on
the road than a span of horses did, 90
and return with the horses, and keep
even with them all day when plowing.
But when hired man was directed TO
drive the OK team, they would soon be-
come so hot, that they had to be allowed
to stand nearly one-fourth of the time,
lOlling and putting in the shade Does
the reader inquire the cause of the diff
ference? 1t was simply the whip or no
whip. The hired man must ALWAYS
have tremendous long whip-staik with
u hard lash on it, while |, "heedless
! bOobyn as they called me, never cared
whether had a whip or not
When the hired man was driving
oxen, every one on the farm knew
where he was at work, as he made the
welkin ring with his incessant bawling
at the team. II was one perpetual whip
and bawl from the time the team started
from the barn until they returned. But
the whip always preceded the bawl
Hence, the oxen were kept on the tip
/ toe of excitement, from being worried
and fretted during all the working
hours. Before the oxen were told to
move, they were hit sharp cut with
the lash. If the driver desired them to
gee, he piled the lash before giving the
orders. If the team geed too much,
they got an angry cut, and were electri-
fled into runaway mood by the furious
bawl of the enraged driver, who was al
most fighting mad all the time he was
driving the OK team.
When the boy was directed to drive
the oxen, he was pretty near out of
/ humor, because he had to manage the
/ oxen, and could not ride. Hence he
wouldn't have the big OK whip. He
was little wilful. All the whip he
would use was any little stick like a
gentleman's riding whip. But he soon
! learned that he could mount the cart
tongue and go anywhere through the
woods without whipping and bawling
at the oxen, and when plowing, they
would keep the furrOw far better by the
/ simple motion Of a little stick, than by
/ the perpetual bawling of the driver.
! Hundreds of acres have plowed with
oxen without any whip at all. After l
had passed the age of boyhood, l always
| preferred an OK team to horses when
/ plowing, as the plow could be handled
much more easily than when a pair of
heavy whipple-trees were at the end of
the plow beam. Many and many DAYS
have plOwed with my fat oxen for six
or seven hours, when each one was eat
ing over half bushel of corn daily, be-
sides much other feed. AS I used no
whip, and did not keep them excited by
an angry bawl, those heavy oxen wad-
died along, quietly chewing the cud,
and grew fatter every day. The great
trouble with teamsters at the present
day is, they do not know how to man
age oxen or horses. BY their incessant
bawling, whipping and clubbing, they
worry and fret off more fat and muscle
in day than animals can accumulate
" y Times.