A man will ride one, and lead four or five by his side.
They
will be worth perhaps seventy-five dollars apiece; so that one man
will easily take along with him, three or four hundred dollars' worth
of the produce of the farm, in the shape of horses; whereas the hay
which had been consumed on the farm to make these horses, it would
have taken forty yoke of oxen to move."
"Forty yoke!" repeated Marco.
"I don't mean to be exact," said Forester. "I mean it would take a
great many. So that, by feeding his hay out to horses, the farmer
gets his produce into a better state to be transported to market. The
Vermont horses go all over the land. Thus you see that the farmers
in the grass country have to turn the vegetable products which they
raise, into animal products, before they can get them to market; and
as the rearing of animals is a work which requires a great deal of
attention, care, patience, and skill, the cultivators must be men of a
higher class than those which are employed in raising cotton, or even
than those who raise grain. The animals must be watched and guarded
while they are young. There are a great many different diseases, and
accidents, and injuries which they are exposed to, and it requires
constant watchfulness, and considerable, intelligence, to guard
against them. This makes a great difference in the character which is
required in the laborers, in the different cases.
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