184 AGEICULTURAL EEPORT. 



organization, tlioy are especially aclaptcd to sterile, stony, and rocky soils 

 and mountainous regions, and even to torrid climates. The ass is hii^toric, and 

 appears to have been domesticated at a very early period of the world's history, 

 and he is found at the present day in a state of nature or wild in the same re- 

 gions, where, we read in the Bible of the wild asses snuffing up the wind. 

 So also in the very earliest history of the human race M'e read of the hybrid 

 animal, the mule, having been a familiar object ; and, indeed, in the book of 

 Genesis we find mention of the mule before the horse has been named. Mules 

 are admirably adapted to torrid climates, and they will subsist under very un- 

 favorable circumstances of soil, climate, and exposure to hardships where the 

 horse could not be sustained. In England, where the donkeys are the property 

 of the poor, and are considered of little value, and where the poorer mares are 

 used for crossing, the resulting mule is an inferior animal, and is emp'oyed ia 

 very subordinate situations, though admirably adapted for the subterranean 

 occupation of dragging coal cars in the mines where a larger beast could not get 

 along. In southern latitudes, however, where the mule rises into importance 

 from its being peculiarly adapted to the attendant circumstances of soil and 

 climate, and where the jacks are more noble, and are bred with more care, the 

 donkey is a much larger and finer beast, and the resulting cross, when proper 

 mares are employed, is a superior animal. Some of the finest jacks in this 

 country for a long time were of the Maltese breed, the first of which was sent 

 by La Fayette to Washington in the year 1787. He was the first "Knight of 

 Malta" in this country, where now so many may be found, and his progeny was 

 highly valued. After the death of Washington, eight of his mules were sold at 

 $200 apiece, and these were probably the get of this so-called "Knight of 

 Malta." 



This item from history not only shoAvs that mules were highly and justly 

 appreciated at that early period, but also that the immortal Father of his 

 Country, when retiring from the arena of public life, attended scrupulously to 

 the details of the farm, and brought his great sagacity to bear upon the proper 

 breeding, rearing, and breaking of a mule for his plough and wagon, as he had 

 ever done in directing the movement of armies raised to defend our borders, or 

 in guiding the ship of state through the troublesome breakers of the political 

 storms that attended and followed our first great revolution. Washington's 

 " Knight of Malta" is described as having moderate size, great activity, and 

 clean limbs, possessing the fire and ferocity of a tiger, and as being of a dark 

 brown color, with white belly and muzzle. Professor Low, in his excellent 

 work on Practical Agriculture, pays a just tribute to the ass, which he says 

 " has been the servant of man from the earliest records of the human race. He 

 has come to us from the south and east, and it is there that he is seen in his 

 perfect state. Were we to judge of the value and importance of this creature 

 from the feeble services he is able to render us in the oppressed and degraded 

 position he occupies in this country, we should form a very false estimate of his 

 importance. He is the inhabitant of the desert, and an invaluable servant in 

 the regions in which nature has fitted him to exist. But yet, more than this, 

 he is endowed with the power of propagating a race of creatures of the highest 

 importance to the inhabitants of many countries. The mule, as an animal of 

 burden in a rocky and precipitous country, far exceeds the horse or any other 

 animal; and some countries would remain separated from one another by im- 

 passable barriers, Avere it not for the matchless sagacity, patience, and sure- 

 footedness of this creature." 



It is in the south of Europe, and in an especial manner the mountainous 

 parts of it, that the mule is regarded as important in rural economy. Yet he 

 is capable of being cultivated in the colder countries. He possesses the hardy 

 propertied which lit him for innumerable kinds of lighter labor ; he is long- 

 lived and remarkably exempt from diseases, especially of the limbs ; and he can 



