No. 3. 



On the use of Mules. 



11 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 On the use of Mules. 



Messrs. Editors, — The advocates for the 

 use of mules are about to do disservice to 

 their cause, and play the game of multicau- 

 lus again, to their manifest injustice. That 

 they are most valuable animals for many 

 purposes, none who have been accustomed 

 to them will deny ; but that they should be 

 seriously recommended for the use of the 

 gentleman's carriage, is about as preposter- 

 ous as to make pies of the leaves of a plant 

 now so universally held in contempt, and for 

 no defect of its own, as it has done more 

 than its judicious friends ever promised for 

 it. I believe that to substitute four mules 

 for horses, on a farm where two or three of 

 the latter are kept, would be found very con 

 venient and profitable; for, while in heavy 

 ploughing, the whole number might be used 

 to great advantage, three would be found 

 more powerful than many a pair of horses 

 on a less tenacious soil, when the spare beast 

 could be made to perform divers other ser 

 vices, such as hoe-harrowing, for which the 

 mule is peculiarly well suited ; in a cart 

 made small and light for the purpose; with 

 a light harrow, and indeed in many other 

 ways, by which the team of three might be 

 kept at the plough: while the whole number 

 in a light and broad-wheeled wagon, is the 

 most perfect team that can be imagined. 

 The food necessary for a good pair of horses 

 would be sufficient, with a little additional 

 coarse feed, for four mules; while their 

 strength, agility, and lasting qualities, would 

 be far greater on a farm, than that of a pair 

 of horses under any circumstances, and quite 

 equal, in some, pair for pair — a circumstance 

 of very great importance in the despatch of 

 business. 



During the last year I have had my at- 

 tention drawn very forcibly to this subject, 

 by witnessing the services performed on a 

 large estate in Delaware, a late purchase of 

 Dr. Noble, of Philadelphia, by a set of four 

 mules of superior strength and agility; they 

 have been mainly engaged hauling marl 

 from a pit about two miles distant, and the 

 loads which these animals walk away with 

 four times a day, is a caution to many of 

 us, who boast of a good team of horses. I 

 often meet them on the road, cheerful as 

 larks, sleek as moles, and handy and nearly 

 as intelligent as human beings : never sick, 

 never sorry, but up to everything, even if it 

 be a little mischief at leisure times — such, 

 for instance, as eating up their mangers, or 

 gnawing a hole in the sides of their stalls, 

 when nothing better to do, but always most 

 happy when usefully employed ; and as proof 



of this, when the two shaft animals are let 

 out of their stalls to water on a sunday 

 morning, they will walk away and put them- 

 selves in their places at their own wagon, 

 which they know from others, and stand 

 ready for action, although without harness. 

 The mule is proverbial for uninterrupted 

 health for a great length of time, some say 

 for forty years; and while the horse is in 

 many situations a delicate and costly animal, 

 requiring extra food, attention and warm 

 shelter when at extra work, the mule takes 

 all as it comes; is always ready and willing, 

 and with kind and gentle treatment, as 

 tractable as the horse, with far more saga- 

 city and spirit. I remember, some time 

 ago, seeing a fine mule on the farm of Mr. 

 Thomas Redman, at Haddonfield, drawing 

 the cultivator between rows of high corn, 

 and no horse could have done it in the style 

 that he performed it; gliding between the 

 crop, touching on neither side, and walking 

 about four miles an hour, his small feet 

 making scarcely an impression on the land, 

 and turning at the ends of the rows in about 

 half the space required for a horse. 



At the farm of Dr. Noble, I have lately 

 witnessed a triumph of the Prouty plough, 

 that I could but think you would have been 

 happy to see, as I find that to you the people 

 of this part of the country are indebted for 

 its first introduction. In the hands of the 

 doctor's tenant, Mr. James Bones, it was 

 making such work as astonished us "na- 

 tives." To be sure, he had a noble pair of 

 horses, and he, himself, is one of nature's 

 noblemen ; but the way in which he turned 

 up and over a clover sod, with a crop on it 

 about so high as the knee, was by no means 

 slow, which you will believe, when I say I 

 was informed that with a single pair of 

 horses, he had ploughed two acres and a 

 half a day! I call this a triumph, for it 

 ought to be known that Mr. Bones had at 

 first a strong prejudice against the Prouty, 

 or centre draught plough, being in favour of 

 the Miles plough, which he had used for 

 seventeen years, and become perfect in the 

 management of it ; but so soon as he had 

 witnessed the superior manner in which this 

 plough cultivates the soil, he had strength 

 of mind to change his opinion, and strength 

 of body to execute his purpose, in a way 

 which scarcely any one else can imitate. 

 Let me add, to Mr. Bones we are indebted 

 for a fair and satisfactory trial of the Prouty 

 subsoil-plough in the cultivation of corn, in 

 which he left two lands unstirred in the sub- 

 soil to see the difference ; and there the dif- 

 ference is indeed so great, that it has been 

 said a blind man can perceive it, by the 

 touch; it is so much taller and stouter on the 



