Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1919-04-04
April Snowdrifts From -Four To Eight Feet Deep

, winter we missed last January and
February, in April and May One
quaint spoken old farmer I know of
when asked, two months ago, if we
weren't going to have any real winter,
responded: Wall, I've lived seventy
year and / never knew a winter to rot
in the sky, yit.''
Certainly, March was as warm and
forward as April usually is. During
that month the garden rhubarb got up
several inches high; 1 picked trailing
arbutus in full bloom; and we had
royal mess of fresh daudelion greens
three things l never before saw in this
place during March. And now gardens,
woods and grass lands are. covered with
fifteen to twenty inches of snow-with
more coming.
Some of my neighbors sowed onions
and peas and similar seeds, last week
I'm very much inclined to think l
| should have done the same-with on
| ions, anyway-had not other conditions
outside of weather and soil prohibited.
| once sowed half a bed of onions in
March. l intended to sow the whole
| bed, as the ground was in fine shape,
| but was stopped when half done by a
snow squall. This was followed by
| fortnight or more of cold, sour, freez-
| ing weather, before I could complete
the sowing. The first sown half of
| that bed yielded a much larger crop of
| better onions than the later sown half,
| though the seed had to lie under snow,
etc, for "a full fortnight. I have always
fancied that the seed softened up dur
| ing that wait so that, when growing
finally came, it was all ready to crack
/ and terminate. With most seeds it
| doesn't pay to get ahead of the season,
| ItIify Il fnrx
peas and smooth round peas and spin
| ach which frost doesn't seem to hurt.
my experience indicates that the ear
| lier they can be got it the better. Per
haps. those neighbors who forced the
season, this spring, will have no cause
to regret it. / hope not, anyway.
| But, after all, the thing which l have
| been thinking about the most, this
| driftedin morning, is the old ox-team.
| have seen only one in all this town
during the last ten years.
| When | was a boy, sixty years ago
every farmer had at least one yoke of
/ oxen and often a yoke of steers, also.
! Few ever thought of keeping more than
| one horse to drive to meeting with or
TO the store after groceries. Now, ev-
cry farmer has at least one span of
horses and many two or three with no
oxen.
Yet. for such farming as we in New
England have to do, l am not con-
WINGED that the horse-tea is really a
| wiser investment than the oxen. OF
course, horses usually walk a bit fast
er and trot very much faster But
trotting is not the usual gait in field
work nor is fast walking absolutely
essential.
| Take blowing, for instance. When
oxen draw the usual landslide plow the
pull is by a long chain attached to the
center of the yoke, while, with horses,
the pull is by Whiff1e-trees and traces.
This last tends to lift the pillow much
more than the yoke chain draw. Hav-
ing ploWed a great many acres with
hoa, must say that l would rather
pillow with oxen than with horses One
can pillow deeper; can control the plow
more assuredly; has vastly less work
turning at the ends Of furrows-no
whiffletrees to bother with and nc
traces for one horse or the other to
step over-can lay Il straighter and
smoother furrow slice
l have already spoken of the greater
usefulness of oxen in breaking out
drifted roads. This leads to a sugges-
ton of their hardness in the woods In
getting out timber OF the winters fue
they are a better team than horses;
what horses can't, at least without
danger of baking" etc
Then too, when horses get old and
die, their loss is a total one. But there
need be no loss with oxen Ny old ia
Their always kept oxen and actually
used to make q little profit off eaci
team. Every two or three years he
bought pair of young steers, broke
them in and, as soon as they were able
to do the work, fattened the older oxer
and sold them for beef, usually getting
more for them than he had paid foi
the steers. He repeated this regularly
each yoke of oxen paying for a new
yoke of steers and something over
, This can't be done with horses-unles.
one is a "hoss- jockey" And few
, working farmers are that.
Oxen cost much less to feed are les:
: liable to lameness and disease, anC
seldom call for shoeing.
, Now that the advent of automobile.
t has made horses less essential for roat
: work, deliveries ETC., l wonder tina.
l more farmers don't return to the us,
{ of oxen for field farm work
! 1t may be that we shall vet hav,
! tractors offered US, small and hand
: enough to plow our little, irregular ant
\ stony fields. But even they won't d,
4 woods work and some other functions
S In my own particular case, all tn
absolutely essential use I have for ;
9 horse is to cultivate and, occasionally
+ when the roads are deep in snow O
; mud, to drive to the village. All tn
: rest of my work could be done witt
oxen and an auto. truck. If I were ;
younger man, with a farmers lif
, ahead of me, certainly should do m
r best to get yoke of oxen.
. OF course, one can't carry over hi
v own conditions of work to anothe
| farm with. perhaps quite dissinila
y environment. But, i'll view of the wa
g in which farm expenses are rising an,
5 the consequent necessity of lookin,