I So The Book of the Horse. 



To prepare them for sale they are placed in separate stalls of low, hot, ill-ventilated 

 stables, fed liberally on good hay, baked potatoes, wheat, oats, barley, and maize (cooked or 

 crushed), and sometimes oilcake, in order to make them as fat as pigs — a point the dealers insist 

 on. 



Although mules veiy rarely breed, it is advisable to castrate the males, which otherwise 

 become violent and vicious at certain seasons of the year. 



I have given the preceding account of the Poitou baiidet and the mule-breeding establish- 

 ments of Poitou, of which he is the foundation (chiefly extracted from an elaborate work by 

 M. Eugene Gayot), because the mule is a valuable animal in the West Indies and several English 

 colonies and dependencies, and has long been bred and used successfully in the southern semi- 

 tropical regions of the United States. It is essentially the animal for a country of bad or no roads, 

 coarse and scanty herbage, uncertain supply of water, a mountainous or sandy country, and hot 

 climate. Under certain circumstances the mule will endure privations that would kill a horse, 

 but he requires management by people who understand his peculiarities. The mule is of little 

 value without the mule-driver. Where he is wanted he takes his place naturally ; his position is a 

 question of geography. You do not find him regularly at work, superseding the horse and the ox, 

 in Flanders, or in Normandy, or in New York, or Boston; but after you pass Avignon he becomes 

 familiar, and rivals the horse on the Pyrenees; in Kentucky he is part of the stock of the farm, 

 and in California mules are as plentiful as costermongers' donkeys in London. 



The asses of Cyprus are much valued for their strength and docility ; they are of a yellow 

 colour. The mules are finest in the Levant ; a large number were used in the Ashantee 

 expedition. 



Mules in England are accidents, or fancy stock on fancy farms. They have long been bred 

 and used on the home farms of certain noblemen. The late Lord Leconfield had several teams 

 of draught-mules full i6 hands high, and very strong. They were sold at Tattersall's on his 

 death. They are still bred and used at Badminton; and four, ridden by postillions, used to draw 

 the hound van. It is difficult to discontinue any usage on a great estate. The following letter from 

 Mr. John Thompson, the agent to the Duke of Beaufort, in answer to inquiries addressed to him 

 by the writer of this chapter, gives late and authentic information on the subject : — 



"Mules were first introduced at Badminton about seventy years since. The first Spanish 

 Jack was imported during the Peninsular War, and the first mules by him were out of a large 

 active cart-mare. Three or four which she bred were upwards of 17^ hands high. Mule teams 

 have been kept up ever since, chiefly home bred; and in consequence of the difficulty in pro- 

 curing first-class Jacks, imported animals have latterly been introduced. We have bred them 

 from both cart and half-bred mares, and find that the stock from these are more powerful than 

 the imported animals, being larger in the bone, and of greater substance. We have had Jacks 

 from Malta and Spain, but those from the latter country are generally superior. The mule 

 foals are very hardy, there being no difficulty whatever in rearing them, and when grown up 

 are less expensive to keep than horses. Ordinary carters drive the teams, which are composed 

 of four mules each, driven double; and they will each with ease draw a load of 50 cwt., in 

 addition to the wagon, at the rate of four miles per hour on a good road. They are especially 

 useful in carrying hay or corn during harvest, being much quicker than horses with light loads. 

 We have seventeen at work at present. They last longer than horses, a mule at thirty years 

 old being about equal to a horse at twenty." 



Mules and goats are generally found in the same climate, and under the same circumstances. 

 But if any gentleman chooses to amuse himself with breeding mules, either in this country or in 



