206

®N THE LIVE-STOCK

more for that article, amounting in all to 134- acres. If theoxen are idle for two months in the year, this is the samething as if they had worked twelve months, and consumedthe produce of 16f acres.

Let it, however, be admitted, that this extra consump-tion of produce, ought not to be all charged to the head oflabour. For the three years that oxen are worked, they aresaid to add L. 6 each to their value when put to work, whichis equivalent to 15 stones of beef at 8 s. and for the fouroxen 60 stones during their three years’ labour. In a formerpart of this chapter, it has been estimated, that an acre ofgood pasture, worth L. 4, should produce 15 stones of beef,so that four acres out of 48f acres, the produce of which isconsumed during the three years’ labour of four oxen, whichare then six and a half years old, may be said to have beenemployed in producing beef, and 44f in producing labour,that is 14|- more than horses would have required for theirmaintenance, while working three years; making a differenceevery year, in favour of a pair of horses, of nearly five acres;over and above the difference, in the number of acres requir-ed for the maintenance of horses and oxen till they are readyfor labour.

With regard to the value of the crops consumed by horsesand oxen, it docs not appear that the difference is con-siderable, at least not in any degree equal to the differencein quantity. An acre of oats producing 40 bushels, and anacre of turnips, may be nearly of the same value; and thegrass, whether cut or pastured, and hay, cannot be rated verydifferently per acre.

The much disputed question about the employment ofoxen, is sufficiently decided, so far as regards the interest ofcultivators, by almost universal experience. The precedingobservations have been therefore chiefly confined to a generalview of the question, in so far as the public interest may besupposed to be concerned; and fortunately on this, as onmost other occasions, when no municipal regulations inter-