200

ON THE LIVE-STOCK

them into fashion, cannot convince any of our farmers, thatthe change would be for their interest Even in the north-eastern counties, the same sentiments are become very gene-ral. In Aberdeenshire , “ the worked oxen are not one-fiftli part of the number that was kept before 1782, norone-tenth of the number that was kept fifty years agoSuch have been the consequences of the extension of improvedhusbandry, which even the impolitic tax on farm-horses hasfailed to withstand.

To account for the general preference given to horses inScotland , it has been said, that <e the change from the kindof ox-teams formerly in use, to teams of two horses, was amanifest, and great improvement. At that time, not fewerthan two oxen and two horses were yoked in one team, andtwo oxen besides were kept to relieve alternately the two inthe draught. It was easy to see, if two horses performed asmuch work as four oxen and two horses, that the use of thelatter team should be given up, and that of the former in-troduced J.” But if even four oxen are equal for farm la-bour to two horses, (and it has been lately alleged that threeoxen will perform as much work as two horses), why not layaside the horses, and retain the oxen ?

The following reasons, among others, may be assignedfor the exclusion of oxen from farms, under the rotationsthat have been mentioned.

1. The first and most important objection to the employ-ment of oxen is, that they are incapable of performing all sortsof farm-labour. There is not, with the exception of LordKarnes, any writer of reputation on husbandry, whose senti-ments are not in unison with the general opinion of actual far-mers on this point. Some, indeed, allege, that a part of thelabour may be performed by oxen, with some advantage, in

* East-Lothian Report, p. 189.f Aberdeenshire Report, p. 491.

1 West-Lothian Report, App. p. 304.