210

ON THE LIVE-STOCK

This result in favour of horses is more than sufficient to co-ver the premium of insurance which was formerly chargedagainst them, and any difference in the value of the produceconsumed by horses and by oxen;

There is occasion for only one remark more on this in-teresting question. According to the weight of beef estimat-ed to be produced by fattening cattle at four years’ old, anacre of arable land, upon which working oxen must be bred,is calculated to yield only about 114 - stones, whereas the greaterpart of such land, even though kept in grass, according to aformer statement, would have produced 15 stones per acre, bygrazing cattle of a proper age instead of breeding them. Forthis reason, it lias been found unprofitable to breed cattle ongood arable land. Besides, the demand for the small cattle ofthe Highland counties would be very greatly diminished, andthe production of grain, as well as of beef in the lowland coun-ties of Scotland , must be reduced in a still greater proportion,--by the general employment of an instrument of labour, whichis at once inefficient and expensive,—not adapted by its natureto the purposes of modern husbandry,—inconsistent with anabundant supply of the means of subsistence, and utterly un-fit for meeting the multiplied wants of wealth and refinement,-_of war, manufactures, and commerce.

The tax on farm-horses, with a view to encourage the useof oxen, must therefore be considered very injudicious ; andas it affects all farm-horses generally, and not those only forwhich oxen might be substituted, and makes no distinctionbetween those situations where the greater part of the labourmust of necessity be performed by horses, and such as fromvicinity to markets, manure, and fuel, admit of the partialemployment of oxen, it is at the same time exceedingly un-equal in its operation. The employment of oxen, if it shouldstill be deemed of any public utility, would be better promot-ed, by imposing a tax on all the horses of a farm where no