430 THE ASS AND THE MULE. 



with yoke and clog on, they will yet roll down, or roll over a fence ! But this argument 

 proves too much, lor will not n)any horses do the like ? Alter all, it may be fairly argued 

 thai in most cases tlie habit ol jumping is first prompted by starvation ; and that with mules 

 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 wliat 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 ot the mischief he deprecates. It is ten to one but 

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

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

 lost — for want of a shoe the horse was lost," saith 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 afler every 

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

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

 favour of the mule; and when to these is added how much oflener 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 

 7J0U ever see any body that ever saw a dead donkey 1 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 cannot 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 insteud of mules, for the common drudgery and uses of agriculture — a 

 question of obvious importance, and one which any political economist miglit stippose would 

 be raised by any cin-ious 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 lell 

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

 without any means for its solution approaching to exactness I 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 nmles, 4,335,669. As before remarked, every reader may work his 

 own sum. In Maryland we suppose it to be a large allowance to say that of the 92,220 

 "horses and mules," theie 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 finish the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal — cutting one, pari passu, 

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

 sum establish — how much knowledge would it diffuse, and power create 7 lor 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, that 

 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 Ellicott's large iron works the feed for one horse is ten common-sized ears of corn three 

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

 horses and mules were employed on portions of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-Road, the feed. 



