SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 609 



being the big mule in Philadelphia, owned by the political contractors, 

 the Vare Brothers. He is known all over the city as "Vare's big mule" 

 and stands some seventeen hands high. While such extreme size is un- 

 usual and generally undesirable, gooil, strong, able-bodied and above 

 medium sized animals are the only kind to raise, those from 15 to IS^A 

 or even 15''4 hands always being in good, paying demand, other quali- 

 ties being in keeping. Those little 14-hand fellows may do some classes 

 of work, and may find buyers in some sections, but why breed such ani- 

 mals when it costs but little if any more to breed fine, large ones which 

 will sell for twice as much, and it takes no longer to bring them to a 

 salable age than it does the former. 



Well bred and well broken mules make a fine carriage team, and one 

 which can be depended upon to bring you safely through a long journey, 

 over long hills and through deep and muddy roads or long stretches of 

 sandy plain. In sandy districts, they are much used for carriage pur- 

 poses, and soon acquire the habit of lifting their feet high, to clear the 

 sand, thus giving them fine knee action. I have driven such animals 

 with both comfort and pleasjiire over the long, flat and sandy roads of 

 lower Delaware, in Sussex county, where a horse used to an ordinary 

 good road in other sections would have tired out completely the first 

 few miles, if driven at the same gait we went with ease with the mules. 

 In Kentucky and other mule-raising sections, they are now much used, 

 for carriage purposes. 



UPS AND DOWNS IN STOCK BREEDING. 

 W. J. Kennedy. Iowa Experiment Station, in Breeder's Gazette. 



Observation extending over a considerable period has revealed that 

 the different breeds and clases of live stock have each had their times 

 of prosperity and depression, when prices have soared to fabulous, 

 heights, then gradually dropped into gloomy depths to languish for a 

 longer or shorter period, and then come again into more general favor.. 

 This see-sawing has sometimes been due to the whims of Dame Fashion,, 

 or the wild worship of a family fetish; sometimes to the enthusiasm and 

 forcefulness of one or more wealthy or enterprising breeders in placing, 

 before the public the merits or claims of the breed they favor and push- 

 ing it to the front; sometimes to a change in the demands of the market 

 as to class and quality of products. But there is scarcely a breed among 

 the many bidding for public favor that has not experienced the ebb and 

 flow of the ups and downs of demand and of values in the market for 

 breeding stock. The very fact of these periodical fluctuations may be 

 taken as fairly reliable evidence that no class or breed has indisputable 

 claims to the title of best, and that all, or nearly all, have valuable char- 

 acteristics or qualities that render them worthy of a place and of preser- 

 vation. 



In the field of horse breeding there is room and a place for both the 

 heavy and the lighter classes, the latter for light work and fast traveling, 

 the former for heavy draft, requiring less rapid movement but greater 

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