The Organic Experimental Engine (oxen)
May/June 1973
By John R. Scarlett
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Suppose someone told you that the Exxon Corporation (formerly Esso) had developed a farm vehicle as strong as a tractor but capable of going where no ordinary tractor can . . . through waist-high snow, knee-deep mud and up and down steep, rocky hillsides. That instead of using exhaustible and irreplaceable fuels such as gasoline and kerosene, this invention ran on any high-protein vegetable matter, even grass.
That instead of noxious exhaust it produced a biodegradable substance almost unequaled as a fertilizer. And that—on top of all these other advantages—it had a life expectancy of 20 years and cost as little as $50.00 brand new, with a resale value as high as $2,000!
If you were offered such a creation, would you be willing to spend 20 minutes a day on routine maintenance? And would you accept the fact that this mobile power source has no steering wheel but works on a remote control system that requires you only to walk alongside giving voice directions?
Well, believe it or not, the O.X.EN does exist . . . but it's neither experimental nor the invention of Exxon, for it's been used successfully as long as man can remember. In fact, we own two OXEN ourselves, and I'd like to tell you about them.
A TRIP TO THE LIBRARY
Of all the hundreds of ox drivers in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, we may be the two least knowledgeable. Before the spring of 1972 we couldn't even have told you what an ox was or whether one existed this side of New Delhi and the history books. However, we did know that we wanted something to haul our firewood, plow our fields, bring sap to our sugar shack and, in short, pull harder than our two backs can pull. We knew also that we didn't want another internal combustion engine . . . which ruled out a tractor or any other power source that uses what cannot be replaced.
That meant some kind of draft animal . . . but which? Though we'd heard good things about mules, we knew they required yards of expensive harness. Horses have the same drawback plus a few of their own: We'd seen our friends down the road sell their beautiful pair of work horses after struggling to untangle all that leather and—even worse—after almost being killed by the high-spiritedness of their supposedly gentle team.
Well then, what about oxen? Cattle, we reasoned, might be simpler to drive than horses and—if they had to be killed—would at least provide meat; which we could use or sell to help pay for another team. Off we went to the nearest library to do some research.
We caught the librarian a little off guard, since she'd never been asked about work cattle before. When she recovered, she found that, technically, "ox" can mean any member of the Bovidae family of ruminants . . . such as cattle, sheep, goats and antelope. More commonly, though, the term is reserved for a castrated bull . . . a creature which was a common draft animal as late as the last century (see Diary of an Early American Boy by Eric Sloane).
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