198 



THE HORSE, ASS, AND MULE 



Mules usually live to a greater age than horses and perform 

 their work with regularity and on less feed, a most important 

 point in their favor. Cases are recorded of mules living to seventy 

 years of age, and Mr. J. L. Jones refers to one in Tennessee that at 

 thirty years of age was doing effective service attached to a reaper. 

 Two Illinois men report l mules engaged in active draft work, in 

 one case for thirty-four years and in the other for thirty-seven years. 

 The resistance of the mule to disease has been a frequent sub- 

 ject of discussion. It is commonly claimed that the mule is not 



so generally subject to 

 disease as the horse. 

 Pomeroy, in an essay 

 on the mule, credits 

 this animal with free- 

 dom from any kind of 

 disorder or complaint. 

 In an investigation 

 of " blind staggers " 

 among horses in Vir- 

 ginia and North Caro- 

 lina, conducted under 

 the direction of United 

 States Secretary of 

 Agriculture Coleman, 



' 



FIG. 77. An Italian mule about 13 hands high. From 

 a photograph taken in Italy by the author 



mules were found 

 quite exempt from this 

 disease, although they 



are credited with other maladies. In regions in the lower Missis- 

 sippi Valley infested with buffalo gnats, Professor F. M. Webster 

 reports the mule as the animal most subject to fatality from 

 attacks of this insect. Southern-bred mules, however, are far 

 less susceptible to the bites of the gnats than those imported 

 from northern localities. While the mule is not so subject to 

 leg and foot diseases as is the horse, cases of spavin, ringbone, 

 sidebone, and other troubles do occur. Corns are rarely found 

 on the feet of the mule. Even when affected with foot or leg 

 disease, without doubt this animal is, as a rule, less disabled 



1 Farmers' Review, February 3, 1917. 



