THE ASS AND THE MULE. 429 



agricultural uses and purposes ; especially where not crushed nearly to death, by the brutai 

 conduct of man. The disposition to mischief proceeds from neglect. Because it is a mule, 

 it wants nothing to eat, forsooth I My mules are not more mischievous than horses of the 

 same family ; (i. c.) from the same mares. 



" Sir John Sinclair has somewhere said, that wheat straw is unsuited to the nature of the 

 mule — that it is not eaten kindly, and does not agree with the animal. I must respectfully 

 dissent from such high authority. My mules live on notiiing else through the winter, with 

 the addition of a little corn, and are always in good condition. They will haul the cart in 

 all suitable weather, on six ears of corn at a feed, and plenty of clean wheat straw. They 

 require less grain than the liorse. I need not say to you how much longer they live and do 

 good work. More free from disease — not so liable to gall — superior steadiness of draft — 

 and, when properly broke, treated and managed, will walk over as much ground in a day — 

 blood horses to the contrary notwithstanding. The mule is perhaps nowhere so remarkable 

 as at the sweeps of a threshing-machine, where steadiness of draft is all-important. Horses 

 walking in a circle gall sorely where mules do not. I will add that the mule, in its three 

 year old form, must be worked with moderation. It is scarcely capable of doing as much 

 work as the horse at the same tender age. The many dull and sluggish ones that you see, 

 are rendered so, by being crushed in spirit before being gradually inured to work ; and they 

 ever after remain so, the habit being once formed. Upwards of twenty years ago, I had the 

 largest mule ever seen on our shore. He was from one of Gordon's Jacks. When three 

 years old, he was put in the plough, and worked finely, and possessed good spirit. Some 

 weeks after, the weather became very hot — he was overworked — became dull, and finally 

 could not be worked with any satisfaction, alongside of any animal on the farm. He was 

 doomed to work, solus, in the manure-cart, and in his prime I sold him. But two otlier 

 mules bred from the same mare, had first-rate spirit ; and this I attribute to their not being 

 exposed to the same injurious treatment. One of them, now twenty Jive years old, is among 

 the most efficient animals on my farm I What would a horse be worth at the same age ?" 



The Colonel in what he ascribes to Sir John Sinclair about the deleterious effect of wheat 

 straw as food for the mule, perhaps confounds him, in his recollection, with Sir Arthur 

 Young, both known to him as voluminous and eminent writers on British Agriculture. 

 The latter, during his tour in Ireland, was informed that a gentleman had lost several fine 

 mules by feeding them on wheat straw cut, Mr. Pomeroy, too, was told that "a mule-dealer 

 in the western part of New- York, attributed the loss of a number of young mules to their 

 being fed exclusively on cut straw and Indian-corn meal, during a severe winter, when his 

 hay was exhausted." He goes on to say, "in no other instance have I ever heard or known 

 of a mule being attacked with any kind of disorder or complaint, except two or three cases 

 of inflammation of the intestines, caused by gross neglect in permitting them to remain ex- 

 posed to cold and wet when in a state of perspiration, after severe labour ; and drinking to 

 excess of cold water. From his light frame and more cautious movements, the mule is less 

 subject to casualties than the horse. Indeed it is not impossible that the farmer may work 

 the same team of mules above twenty years and never be presented with a farrier's bill, or 

 find it necessary to exercise the art himself" We are here prompted to add, by way of 

 caution to the reader against that horrible disease, the glanders (fully treated in this work 

 on the Horse,) that within two years we were painfully made acquainted with the case of a 

 drunken Irish ditcher, bringing a glandered horse, (which was not worth, if well, a $5 Owl- 

 Creek bank-note,) on a gentleman's farm, on West River, to stay while he was to open some 

 old ditches. — The vile beast communicated his disorder, nor was it arrested until five valua- 

 ble horses, and as many first-rate young mules, fell victims to the loathsome disease. 



On the point of mischief in the mule, however, we cannot but think that Col. G.'s spirit 

 of resentment at the injustice with which this valuable creature is too often denounced and 

 outraged, has led him, in a measure, to overlook some of his natural proclivities. Some of 

 these are doubtless the more excusable as being exercised in the right of self-protection — 

 such for instance as dropping a negro over his head, when he attempts to beat him there ; 

 and then kicking at him to make him lie still, as paddy does the eel, what won't lie still to 

 be skinned. But after all, we suspect, that if a skilful craniologist would examine the skull of 

 a mule, he would somewhere find, more enlarged than the rest, that apartment in which the 

 great artificer has stored away that quality called obstinacy, for which, be it noted, mulishness 

 is occasionally used as a synonyme — and of this opinion, we dare say, was a certain Abbess 

 of Andouillets, spoken of by Sterne, who knew something of mu'e as well as human nature 

 — as our friend will agree, when he recollects the story he tells of the expedients to which 

 the Abbess and the Nun resorted, to get the mules, " who had taken the stud" to go ahead, when 

 night was coming, in the absence of the muleteer, and they were afraid of being ravished. — He 

 will there see what " a shrewd, crafty old devil" of a mule will sometimes do when — it won't do 

 any thing else ; and then for mischief — another friend and warm advocate admits that they 

 are "rank poison upon young calves .'" And as for jumping, it has certainly been said that 



