The Lebanon Express

EARLY USE OF OXEN.

They Preceded the Horse in Agricultural Labor.

The help which our bovine servants render us by the power which they exert in traction, as in drawing plows, sleds or wagons, appears to have been first rendered long after their introduction to the ways of man. The first of these uses in which the drawing strength of these animals was made serviceable appears to have been in the work of plowing. In primitive days and with primitive tools, hand delving was a sore task.

The inventive genius who first contrived to overturn the earth by means of the forked limb of a tree, shaped in the semblance of a plow and drawn by oxen, began a great revolution in the art of agriculture. To this unknown genius we may award a place among the benefactors of mankind, quite as distinguished as that which is occupied by the equally unknown inventors of the arts of making fires or of smelting ores. After the experience with the strength of oxen had been won from the work of plowing it was easy to pass to the other grades of their employment where they were made to draw carriages.

Next after the contribution which the kindred of the bulls have made by their strength we must set that which has come from their milk. Although this substance can be obtained in small quantities from several other domesticated animals, the species of the genus Bos alone have yielded it in sufficient quantities greatly to affect the development of man. It is difficult to measure the importance of the addition to the diet, both of savage and civilized people, which milk affords. It is a fact well known to physiologists that in its simple form this substance is a complete food, capable when taken alone of sustaining life and insuring a full development of the body.