the forest of northern Asia or Lithuania, to the pastures of Canaan, or our enclosures, and the hump had disappeared. Mr. B. indeed, himself says, only three pages further on, "The ox has been trained to agricultural labour from the earliest ages of the world. In the sacred writings, and in the works of most of the ancient eastern authors, this animal is invariably mentioned as the only one that was employed in the plough. The same is also observable in all the accounts respecting the agriculture of ancient Greece and Rome. In some part of India, bullocks are, at this day, almost exclusively employed for the purpose of carrying weighty commodities." He proceeds: "Deprived of the aid of these useful animals, (says the elegant French naturalist, M. de Buffon, in his eulogy on the ox,) the poor and the rich would alike have great difficulty to subsist. The earth (in France,) would remain uncultivated; the fields, and even the gardens, would be dry and sterile. It is on the ox, that all the work of the country falls; he is the most useful domestic that the farmer possesses; and he performs all the labour of agriculture. In former ages he constituted the only riches of mankind;'-(no: sheep, camels, and asses. were a part of them likewise ;)—and still he is the basis of the riches of those nations which only flourish and are supported by the cultivation of lands, and the number of their cattle. It is in these that all real wealth consists: every other kind, even silver and gold, are only arbitrary representatives, which have no value but that which is conferred upon them by the productions of the earth.'

Goldsmith, too, professing likewise to quote Buffon, says, "It appears that naturalists have given various names to animals in reality the same, and only differing in some few accidental circumstances. The wild cow and the tame, the animal belonging to Europe, and that of Asia, Africa, and America, the bonassus and the urus, the bison and the zebu, are all one and the same, propagate among each other, and, in the course of a few generations, the hump wears away, and scarce any vestiges of savage fierceness are found to remain. Of all animals, therefore, except man alone, the cow seems most extensively propagated. Its nature seems equally capable of the rigours of heat and cold. It is an inhabitant as well of the frozen fields of Iceland, as the burning deserts of Libya. It seems an ancient inmate in every climate; domestic and tame in those countries which have been civilized, savage and wild in the countries which are less peopled, but capable of being made useful in all:

able to defend itself in a state of nature against the most powerful enemy of the forest, and only subordinate to man, whose force it has experienced, and whose aid it at last seems to require. However wild the calves are, which are taken from the dam in a savage state, either in Africa or Asia, they soon become humble, patient, and familiar; and man may be considered, in those countries, as almost helpless without their assistance." (Vol. ii. p. 49.)

Of the peculiar advantages of the cow in agriculture, Goldsmith says, "Our pastures supply them with abundance, and they in return enrich the pasture; for, of all animals, the cow seems to give back more than it takes from the soil. The horse and the sheep are known, in the course of years, to impoverish the ground. The land where they have fed becomes weedy, and the vegetables coarse and unpalatable; on the contrary, the pasture where the cow has been bred, acquires a finer, softer surface, and becomes every year more beautiful and even. The reason is, that the horse being furnished with fore-teeth in the upper jaw, nips the grass closely, and therefore only chooses that which is the most delicate and tender; the sheep also, though with respect to its teeth formed like a cow, only bites the most succulent parts of the herbage; these animals, therefore, leave all the high weeds standing, and while they cut the finer grass too closely, suffer the ranker herbage to vegetate and overrun the pasture. But it is otherwise with the cow as its teeth cannot come so close to the ground as those of the horse, nor so readily as those of the sheep, which are less, it is obliged to feed upon the tallest vegetables that offer; thus it eats them all down, and in time levels the surface of the pasture." (Ibid. p. 42.)

"Oxen," says Mr. Bingley, "attain maturity at the age of about eighteen months, or two years. From this age till they are nine years old, they are in their greatest vigour; and the duration of their lives seldom exceeds fourteen or fifteen years. The period of gestation in the females is forty-one weeks, and they usually produce only a single calf at a birth." (Brit. Quad. p. 396.) On this subject, my farming man, mentioned before, (No. x. Vol. v. p. 270.) says that the period of gestation is about forty weeks; but that a cow with a cow-calf sometimes goes a few days or a week less, and, with a bull-calf, a week, or ten days or a fortnight longer. Another curious particular in respect to the gestation of cows which he mentions, is, that if a person has several cows with calf, and one slips, all the rest of the

cows in the same yard that have cow-calves will slip also. This certainly was, in one instance, the case with us. We had three cows in-calf, one slipped; the next, which had a bull-calf, did not slip; but the third, which had a cow-calf, did slip. In the present which Jacob made to Esau, there were "forty kine and ten bulls," (Gen. xxxii. 15.) or one bull to four cows. (See before, No. x. Vol. v. p. 271.) It was expressly promised the Israelites, that, if they would be obedient to God, he would bless "the increase of their kine," "there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle." (Deut. vii. 13, 14.) "There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land.” (Exod. xxiii. 26.)

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As oxen or bulls were so generally kept by the Israelites, and which, as they grow up, get very fierce and mischievous, unless properly restrained, the law of the Israelites was very particular in respect to them. If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. If the ox shall push a man-servant or maid-servant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. And if a man shall open a pit," in the highway or unenclosed grounds, “or if a man shall dig a pìt, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his. And if one man's ox hurt another's, that he die, then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide. Or, if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and his owner hath not kept him in, he shall surely pay ox for ox, and the dead shall be his own. If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep, he shall restore double." (Exod. xxi. 2836. xxii. 1, 4.)

Of the numbers or herds of oxen, something has already been said under the article of sheep. (No. x. vol. v. p. 268.) Abraham and Jacob had both their herds of oxen; and the present which Jacob selected from his herd for Esau, consisted of forty kine and ten bulls, (Gen. xxxii. 15.) Job had his 500 yoke of oxen in his first prosperity, (i. 3.) which was doubled after his "captivity," (xlii. 12.) "Solomon's provision for one day, was" "ten fat oxen" from the stall, "and twenty oxen out of the pastures;" (1 Kings iv. 22, 23.) or 14,600 in a year: and at the dedication of the temple, 22,000 oxen were offered at once, (1 Kings viii. 63.) On Asa's success over the Ethiopians, he, with his people, "offered unto the Lord the same time, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen," (2 Chron. xv. 11.) that is, as in most cases of sacrifice, by burning part, and giving the rest to the priests and people to be eaten.*

Of the vast numbers of cattle in the Holy Land at this day, Dr. Clarke, in his Travels, says, between Acre and Nazareth, "shepherds appeared in the plain, with numerous droves of cattle, consisting of oxen, sheep, and goats." (Vol. ii. 4to. ́ p. 326.) Again, "In the battle of July the 5th," 1801, with the Arabs, "after a skirmish, wherein forty Arabs were killed, and many wounded, Djezzar's troops succeeded in driving to the mountains an army of ten thousand, as they related, (probably not half that number,) who left behind them 68,000 bullocks, camels, goats, and asses," (Ibid. p. 490.) In a very interesting "Account of a Subterranean Glacier at Fondeurle," in the Edinburgh Philosophical

* In the appendix of Sir Frederick Eden's work on "The State of the Poor," (p. lxxxvii.) is an account of the cattle, &c. sold in Smithfield in each year from 1732 to 1794. In this last year the numbers were 109,064 cattle, and 717,990 sheep. He adds, "that the size and weight, both of cattle and sheep, have probably increased at least one-fourth since 1732; according to which rate, the consumption of meat, with respect to the number of pounds, has augmented much more than it has with respect to the number of cattle and sheep." He says, that in 1732, probably the weight of a net carcase of black cattle was about 370 lbs. and of a sheep 28 lbs. Bullocks now, (1794) killed in London, weigh, at an average, 800 lbs.; calves, 148 lbs. sheep, 80lbs.; and lambs, about 50 lbs. each. He says, further, "that considerable numbers, both of cattle and sheep, are made use of in the metropolis, which never appear in London; and I have little doubt, but that the number of the sheep consumed in London, in 1794, exceeded 770,000; and of cattle, 120,000." How much must they have increased, both in size and number, since that time, a period of nearly thirty years, in which agriculture and the art of feeding cattle have made such advances, in which London has been so much increased in size, and luxury has extended its demands!

Journal, No. iii., mention is made of "The Fair of Fondeurle,”, which it states, is the name given to a very extensive meadow, about twelve miles to the north of Die, in the department of the Drome, in the great calcareous subalpine range in the south of France. This meadow is situated above the limit of the wood, which here terminates at the height of 5147 feet above the level of the sea, and is bounded on the north and east by a high calcareous crest, while in the south it joins the Col de Quint at Fondeurle. In the month of June, the fair of Fondeurle is held upon this plain, and all the cattle-dealers in the neighbouring mountains, in spite of the difficulty of access, bring hither their flocks, which have sometimes amounted to 1000 mules, 4000 cows and oxen, from 15,000 to 20,000 sheep, and from a 1000 to 1200 goats," (p. 80.) I have been informed, that in Siberia, a single nobleman will possess perhaps 10,000 head of oxen.

The herds in Canaan were taken care of by herdmen, over whom there was a chief; as we find that the herds of Saul were superintended by Doeg, an Edomite, who was "the chiefest of the herdmen." (1 Sam. xxi. 7.) The names of David's herdmen are mentioned, (1 Chron. xxvii. 29.) "And over the herds that fed in Sharon was Shitrai the Sharonite; and over the herds that were in the valleys was Shaphat the son of Adlai."

The prophet Amos, too, was among the herdmen of Tekoa," (Amos i. 1.) and was called from thence by God, to warn his people to repentance. Burder, in his "Oriental Customs," (vol. ii. p. 110.) illustrating 1 Samuel ix. 13. says, "The following extract, compared with the circumstances recorded in this chapter respecting the business upon which Saul was sent, will greatly illustrate them. Each proprietor has his own mark, which is burnt into the thighs of horses, oxen, and dromedaries, and painted with colours on the wool of sheep. The latter are kept near the owner's habitation; but the other species unite in herds, and are towards the spring driven to the plains, where they are left at large till the winter. At the approach of this season, they seek and drive them to their sheds. What is most singular in their search is, that the Tartar employed in it has always an extent of plain, which, from one valley to another, is ten or twelve leagues wide, and more than thirty long, yet does not know which way to direct his search, nor troubles himself about it. He puts up in a bag, six pounds of the flour of roasted millet, which is sufficient to last him