Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-08-30
agricultural department,
MORE OXEN NEEDED.

Farmer is equally applicable to this
part of New England, where there are
fewer working oxen than formerly.
The census returns disclose the fact
that while there is no diminution in the
number of domestic animals kept in the
State, during the last ten years there is
a great falling off in the number of
working oxen; and this accounts in
part, for the continued high price of
beef while the prices of almost every
thing else have declined. Why, the
nearly three hundred farmers of Augusta
own less than twenty-five yoke of work.
ing oxen, and while this does not repre-
sent the ratio of working oxen to farmers
in the State, it comes much nearer to it
than it ought to. We believe that with
out exception, every farmer in this city
owns horse, and from that to three or
four, while on an average, only one in
twelve owns pair of oxen. The argu-
ment put forth in favor of this condition
of things, and we admit that there is
force in it, is that horses perform the
work better and quicker than oxen;
that they are more fit for use on roads
or to encounter bad weather that they
suffer less from extraordinary exertion
and from heat than oxen, and that they
are adapted to many purposes for which
oxen are unfit
But is not the argument in favor of
oxen equally forcible? Oxen cost less
at first, and the annual expense for har-
ness, farriery and food is much less for
oxen than for the horse; they perform
: more labor for their annual cost of keep
ing; they increase in value from the
beginning of working; are worth more
at last than at the first, going at last
to the butcher at price varying from
one to two hundred dollars per yoke,
. while the skin of the dead horse is all
that is worth anything. There are
- some ORLEANS that will do as much
work on the farm as horses, team for
. team, but We are aware that such instan-
: ces are rare. On the contrary. as a
general rule, horses will perform about
J twice as much work on the farm as oxen
D. English farmers, after carefully exper
ID imenting, have arrived at the conclusion
that while it takes eight oxen to do thu
d work Of five horses, the balance of cos
70 would be from twelve to fifteen dollar
70 per annum in favor of ORLEANS. Ii
Il Scotland, on large farm, where severa
teams of both kinds were used, three OK
+ en- were found to be equal to two horse
u for all kinds of farm work, and the bal
ance in the cost of keeping, etc., 70
: twelve years at the rate of three oxen
two horses, in four teams, amounted
Is two hundred and thirty dollars in fave
of the oxen.
q. All this goes to prove that for actus
re labor on the farm, there is decide
it. advantage in using oxen; we are speal
- ing now more particularly of the farmer
of New England, for in the cultivatio
of the immense fields of the South an
West, horse labor is indispensable, an
al. on all farms situated remote from ii
is markets. The horse will withstand ii
~ nc heat much better than the OK, but
vas our mixed husbandry, there is no occ
rue sion for using either horses or oxen CO..
1t stantly during the heated term. III
gh- low and even temperature of EnglaI
~ does not interfere with working oxt
during the whole season, except in ra
lor cases. We have not the least dou
that if the small farmer with from ff
to one hundred acres of land, who fin
~ 'ur rs it necessary to keep more than one hor
, 'nds to do his work, would keep a yoke
IN IN. oxen, the business of the farm would
lber on fully as we'll as though he kept t.
horses, while the profit would be mu
ave more satisfactory. We recognize t
'py fact that the horse is the noblest a
most useful of all our domestic ANNA
lbits but we must speak a word in behalf
the patient OK which, with less dang
to from disease or accident, with less {
ese pense of food and harness, and with
certainty that his value is increasi
tors with age. should in our judgment,
! h its ordinary farm work take the place
e ME the horse.
yht's We have said that one of the Oh
STs objections to the use of oxen on the ia
is that they are slow. but is there
80 remedy for this ? The unbroken,
n IN worked steer or OK walks about as f
as the horse, and why should he char
49,, his gait when broken to labor, and
time the horse? Is it not the difference
have
little their treatment that accounts for p
n EN- en- of the difference in their walking. at
- NJ being broken to labor? The steer
short short broken to the yoke before his strength
pack matured and compelled to labor {
after day, and to draw burdens beyc
liter his strength, and which he is unable
lany draw at all except at snail's pa
- - or he is put to labor with older cat
which have been broken down by
same treatment, and obliged to ad