FARM TEAMS.

BY GEO. K. HARVEY, OF SURRY.

Among the many things indispensable in the cultivation of the soil, a suitable team stands first. And in no department of agricultural industry are the changes made within the last twenty-five years more complete than in this.

A few years ago the universal team to be found upon all New England farms was composed of one or more pairs of oxen. But, owing to various causes, prominent among which was the introduction of farm machinery, the ox has been very largely superseded by the horse.

Although it may be useless to take issue with what seems to be the inevitable, still the discussion of the subject, though it make no change in the course of events, may help us to so adapt ourselves to the altered condition that we make use of all its advantages, and avoid as many of the disadvantages of the change as possible.

The substitution of horses in the place of oxen upon New England farms has undoubtedly made a large decrease in the value of our farm stock within the last twenty years, the census of 1880 showing a decrease of more than twenty thousand in that time. The decrease in the value of oxen in the state has not been in proportion to the decrease in numbers, as the quality has been all the while improving, thereby in a slight degree offsetting the shrinkage in this class of stock. On the other hand, the large increase in the number of horses in use on our farms has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the value of this class of our farm stock. The depression in value is principally brought about by the practice of many farmers of buying their supply of horses from the stock of poor, cheap, old, and unsound horses always to be found in the

stables of our cities and large towns. Horses which under liberal feeding may do a considerable amount of work yet are all the while growing less in value, till in many instances they outlive their ability to pay for the food they consume, to say nothing of the pain and misery in which their last days are passed. Certainly there can be no class of our domestic animals that has a stronger claim for help on our societies for the "prevention of cruelty to animals" than the old, decrepit, worn-out horses.

With the ox the case is entirely different. When age incapacitates him for labor, he will, in the form of beef, bring a sum nearly equal to his value in his best days for work, thus in his exit from the farm leaving a good sum to his credit; while the horse disappears from the farm, his body a total loss, with nothing to his credit unless it be the slightly more expeditious manner in which he has done his work. And this item is again offset by the extra expense of his declining years, as compared with that of a young and vigorous animal.

Would it not be well to retain on all our farms the best type possible of the patient ox, and let the "old horse" go. Certainly there can be no class of stock kept that will make so poor return for his keeping as an old horse.

But, accepting if we must the edict that the ox must go, the question then comes, Are we meeting the change in the best possible manner? We hear much in the discussions of the day of the necessity of the adaptation of means to ends. The dairyman excludes certain breeds of cows from his herds as unfit for his use, and exercises great care in the selections he makes from those breeds which he considers best adapted to his wants. He who makes beef his specialty discards from his herds certain breeds as unsuited to his wants, and accepts those which would be wholly unfit for the dairyman's use. Should we not, in the breeding and selection of our horses, use the same care and caution, that they may be as well adapted to our wants as are the herds of the dairyman and stock-breeder?

We are steadily but surely learning the fact, that the long looked for and much written about "horse of all work" is a treasure far beyond our grasp, and never to be found till the character of the horse, or our wants, are greatly modified. In this age of steam and electricity, the horse that makes but five miles per

hour on the road has but few friends and no adaptation to road use, neither has the nervous, quick-stepping carriage horse, with his ten-mile gait, the slightest adaptation to the laborious work of the plow and cart.

Now, as the mowing-machine, the tedder, the rake, the sulky plow, the wheel harrow, the high price of manual labor, the better condition of our cultivated fields made by the removal of obstructions and the draining of low lands, all combine to make necessary a more expeditious team than the ox, it would be well for us to see to it that the horses we use are well suited to perform the labor required of them.

It is believed by many farmers competent to judge in the matter, that a good horse brings in the market a better price in proportion to his cost than any other animal we raise. Of the truth of this opinion there can be but little doubt. Then is it not better that we raise our own horses, than to buy them from Canada and the West?-and when we raise them, do it with some purpose in view? If we want driving-horses, go to the Morgans or the Hamiltonians; if we want horses for farm work, then the Percheron or the Clyde will be found well suited to the work required of them. In all cases we should breed horses with the same definite purpose that we breed other classes of stock. Then will our farm teams become better adapted to our wants, and a corresponding pleasure and profit accrue from their

use.