30 THE ASS AND THE MULE. 



iPith yoke and clog on, they will yet roll down, or roll over a fence ! But this argx Mem 

 proves too much, fa will not many horses do the like ? After all, it may be fairly argued 

 that in most cases the habit of jumping is first prompted by starvation ; and that with mule* 

 as with man, bad habits are more easily acquired than laid aside ; to lay the spirit of jumping 

 there is nothing like a good supply of what is vulgarly called "belly timber; " and when 

 the farmer complains that his stock destroy his crops, he may well be suspected of having 

 been himself, in some degree, the author of the mischief he deprecates. It is ten to one but 

 you will find him deficient in good feeding or good fencing ; and he who neglects the one, is 

 sure to have greater necessity for attention to the other. u For want of a nail the shoe was 

 lost for want of a shoe the horse was lost," suith poor Richard. 



Any reader may make for himself an estimate of the saving to be realized by the substitu. 

 tion of mule for horse power, to any given extent. For ourselves, we cannot suppose it to 

 be less than $15 per head per annum in favour of the mule, for mere difference of keep for 

 we must take into the calculation not only the difference in the grain consumed, but that 

 coarser forage will subsist the mule he moreover needs no grain when not at work, for it is 

 characteristic of his family, on one side of the house, to browse on furze and thistles, and 

 almost any coarse herbage. How many things, rejected by the more fastidious taste of the 

 horse, is gladly eaten by the Ass " whose house I have made the wildernsss, and the barren 

 land his dwelling : the range of the mountains is his pasture, and he seeketh after every 

 green thing." The average saving among any given number of the two animals, in stabling, 

 grooming, smithery and farriery, will make no inconsiderable item in the bill of costs, in 

 favour of the mule; and when to these is added how much oftener the capital in the horse i* 

 altogether sunk, and "swallowed up" in the grave the difference, in favour of the mule, is 

 so striking and remarkable, that the wonder is that the conviction of it is not carried out in 

 the agricultural economy of the country, to the almost universal adoption of mule power. 

 Have we not the evidence, that as a general rule it may be laid down, that a mule at twenty- 

 five is as hearty, and capable of labour, as a horse at twelve '/ Has not Boz made somebody 

 ask Sammy Veller, or some one else, the question Did you ever see a dead donkey ? Did 

 you ever see any body that ever saw a dead donkey? Let any one take up the census and 

 figure out the cost of supporting all the horses in the United States, and then strike off one- 

 third of that sum, which would be saved by substituting them with mules, and he can not fail 

 to be amazed to think how many good and beneficent things might be accomplished by such 

 a savings fund. Let him calculate what an enormous sum this saving would pay the interest 

 of. True, the census has been taken in many cases with so little skill, and so much care- 

 lessness, that it is impossible to found upon it any calculations on statistical and economical 

 questions of the highest interest. In regard, for example, to the very subject in hand on 

 turning to it, for data to form an opinion of the waste of national means which is committed 

 by the use of horses instead of mules, for the common drudgery and uses of agriculture a 

 question of obvious importance, and one which any political economist might suppose would 

 be raised by any curious inquirer or practical statesman ; what do we find ? Truly, that 

 those who have taken the census, have mingled horses and mules under one head, and left 

 the investigator of one of the most important problems in politico-agricultural economy 

 without any means for its solution approaching to exactness ! In the state of New-York, 

 for example, instead of giving for each county the number of each, both horse and mule, the 

 census tells us the gross number of " horses and mules !" Of these, jumbled together, 

 the number is set down at 474,543. In Maryland, "horses and mules,'' 92,220. In the 

 whole Union, horses and mules, 4,335,669. As before remarked, every rtader may work his 

 own sum. In Maryland we suppose it to be a large allowance to say that of the 92,22C 

 "horses and mules," there are in the whole state 17,220 of the latter, leaving 75,000 horses. 

 In South Carolina the expense of the mule is rated at one-half that of the horse but sup. 

 posing the horse to be more expensive than the mule by only $10 per annum, and here is an 

 unnecessary annual outlay, or deduction from the agricultural resources of the state, of 

 $750,000 ! ! In how many years would that sum extinguish the state debt ? How long would it 

 require, with such a sum, to iimsn the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal cutting one, pari passu^ 

 from Georgetown to Baltimore, which ought to be done ? How many schools would such a 

 Bum establish how much knowledge would it diffuse, and power create 1 for nothing is truer 

 than the French maxim, le savoir est puissance ! Who will say that our theme, in this view 

 of the subject, does not swell at once into a question of national wealth and importance, thai 

 ought to command the regard of every friend and promoter of the agricultural and of the 

 public interest? 



Observers, of much more than ordinary experience, entertain the belief that a mule can 

 be kept in good order, at the same work, on one-half the quantity of corn or oats necessary 

 for a horse, provided he stands at hay, of which he will consume, they say, at least twenty- 

 five per cent, more than a horse. 



At EJ licott's large iron works the feed for one horse is ten common-sized ears of corn thre 

 tin es a diy, while that for a mule is seven ears twice a day ; and so, it may be added, while 

 horst* and -nules were err. ployed on portions of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-Road, the feed, 



