MULE-BREEDERS IN BRITAIN . 479 



7 Ibs. per day ; (2) being very sure-footed they are not nearly 

 so liable to fall ; (3) they are durable, and fully four miles 

 per day more can be taken out of them than out of horses. 

 They are not only hardier and less liable to become lame, but, 

 in competition with horses of their own weight, they have more 

 pluck and perseverance in overcoming difficulties, they walk 

 faster with a load, pull more steadily, and are more powerful. 

 Consequently, where mules are understood and appreciated, 

 the price of a work mule is relatively higher than that of a 

 horse. They are easily broken to work at two years old, but 

 they require to be treated with patience and kindness com- 

 bined with firmness. 



The good qualities of the mule in the performance of farm 

 work in England have been demonstrated by Edward Pease, 

 of Darlington, and by C. L. Sutherland of Down Hill, Down, 

 Kent, who at Coombe, Croydon, a farm of 300 acres (90 being 

 arable) did all the work by mules that consumed a bushel of 

 oats each per week with green clover in summer, and one 

 and a half bushels of oats each per week with hay during 

 winter. W. S. Ferguson, Pixton Hill, Perthshire, Scotland, 

 has bred splendid mules for agricultural purposes by a 

 Spanish Jack on pedigree Clydesdale mares. After ten years' 

 experience he pronounced a pair of them to be equal to 

 the two best horses in his stable, ready and able for every 

 description of farm work, which they did on less food, without 

 ever having required the attendance of a veterinary surgeon. 



In America they are extensively employed. The U.S. 

 Agricultural Returns for 1892 show the existence of 2,314,699 

 mules in the United States, which take their share in the 

 work of the country with the 15,498,140 horses which appear 

 in the same table. The 16-17 hand mules of Missouri, 

 Kansas, and some of the Eastern States are for weight and 

 substance unequalled in any part of the world. During the 

 Boer war in South Africa, 124,729 mules were purchased for 

 service in the British army 73,000 of these being supplied 

 by the United States, and C. L. Sutherland says : " It was 

 considered by many competent authorities on the spot, that 

 but for the North American mule the war would never have 

 been finished." In spite of this national experience of the 

 inestimable value of mules for any purposes, mule-breeding 

 is not making much progress in this country. 



