THE MULE. 40 1 



BREEDING MULES IN THE UNITED STATES, was commen- 

 ced with much spirit in some of the New England states, 

 soon after the American revolution. The ohject was not to 

 breed them for their own use, but simply as an article of com- 

 merce. They were at first shipped exclusively to the West 

 Indies, and afterwards to the South and West, for employ- 

 ment in the sugar mills, and other work on the plantations. 

 Indifferent animals, both as sires and dams, were used at 

 first, as anything which bore the name of mule, then com- 

 manded a ready sale. These were necessarily inferior 

 brutes, and viewed with almost universal derision ; and being- 

 considered the type of their race, a prejudice was excited 

 ag-iinst them, which more than half a century has not been 

 sufficient to dispel. Among a few thinking men at the 

 North, they have been adopted and made highly useful in the 

 various duties of the farm. They have been largely intro- 

 duced at the south and west, but principally in the slave 

 states, where the management of the team devolves upon the 

 ignorant and heedless. It is there, and in other and hotter 

 climates, that the superior merits of the mule over the horse 

 as a laboring animal, are peculiarly manifest. In many instan- 

 ces they are indifferently fed, hardly worked, and greatly ne- 

 glected by their drivers, and yet they sustain themselves for 

 years, in defiance of usage that would annihilate two genera- 

 tions of horses. Their powers have been largely increased 

 and their merits improved, by the introduction of some of the 

 best Maltese and Spanish Jacks, and the use of large, blood 

 mares. The propriety of this course is seen in the value of 

 the product ; for while some of the inferior brutes arc un- 

 saleable at 850, others of the sa > e age, and reared under 

 the same circumstances of keep and condition, could not be 

 purchased for $150. 



The breeding^ rearing and management of mules is similar 

 to that of colts. They will be found, as much as horses, to 

 repay generous keep and attention by their increased and 

 rapid growth. But they should not be pampered by high 

 feed, as it not only has a tendency to produce disease, but to 

 form habits of fastidiousness, which materially lessens their 

 economical feeding in after life. The diseases to which 

 mules are subjected which are always few, and if properly 

 managed they will seldom or ever occur, require a treatment 

 like that of horses. The breeding from mules has sometimes 

 been questioned, but it has been demonstrated in several 

 instances. Neither the sexual development or propensities 



