180 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



qucntlj hear such expressions as " broad as a Coiiestoga horse," " fat,a9 a 

 Conestoga horse," " has a neck (or breast) like a Cohcstoga stallion," used 

 either in compliment, irony, or derision, according to the humor or design of the 

 speaker. 



I cannot close without expressing regret that the " Conestoga hoi'se," whose 

 name for so many years has been suggestive of strength, usefulness, and beauty, 

 is likely in a few years more — from disease and neglect in breeding — to be- 

 come quite extinct as a breed of American horses. 



The horse from which the illustration for this article is taken is owned by 

 Calvin Eshelmau, of Martic township, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and 

 will be three years old next July, is 16 hands high, and weighs 1,350 pounds. 

 His color is black, and he is a very good specimen of the Conestoga horse. 



MULE RAISING. 



BY J. T. WARDER, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO. 



A PAPER upon the production of so useful a domestic animal as the mule 

 would not be considered complete without some allusion being made, at the 

 outset, to the origin and parentage of this hybrid. Though everybody is sup- 

 posed to be acquainted with the facts of mule breeding, we yet find a great 

 many persons who do not know the precise meaning of the terms employed. 

 A mule, in scientific language, means the progeny from a cross between two 

 distinct species, either of animals or of plants, which species, however, must be 

 very neai'ly related, or they will not intermingle. This progeny is generally 

 infertile or barren, though there are some exceptions to this observation in the 

 first generation of hybrids. In the case of the horse-mule there appear to be 

 but few instances recorded of fruitful intercourse, and none beyond the first 

 generation, though in the case of plants, where, perhaps, the species were less 

 distinctly marked, few seeds will germinate, and few are perfected after two or 

 three reproductions from the first cross. Indeed, this production of mule hybrids, 

 next to the non-production of any pi'ogeny, as the result of attempts at crossing 

 distinct animals and plants, has been assumed by naturalists to be conclusive 

 evidence of the existence of distinct species. 



In the practical language of the farm and of the mai'ket the Avord mule has 

 come to mean the progeny of the male ass, or jack, upon the female horse, or 

 mare, while the word hinny is applied to the product of the reverse cross of the 

 stallion upon the jenny, or female ass. In these two different hybrids, con- 

 taining a similar admixture of blood, we find a most remarkable difference of 

 character, which cannot be explained philosophically, but which is often cited 

 as showing the relative impress of dam and sire upon their progeny. In the 

 mule we find the general characteristics, such as the head, ears, voice, tail, feet, 

 and temper, are asinine, and the males ai'e two or three times as numerous as 

 the females, while in size the progeny more nearly resembles the dam ; but in 

 the hinny, or progeny of the stallion on the jenny, the qualities of the horse 

 predominate, with diminished size, this latter quality appearing to depend upon 

 the female. 



There is a common impression that the mare which has once been covered 

 by a jack will never again produce a good horse colt, and that she should be 



