154 * LIGHT HORSES I BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



less contracted than those of other mules. These peculiari- 

 ties are derived from the Poitevin jackass, a variety as curious 

 and perhaps as ugly as he is massive, short-legged and valu- 

 able, and one in which the Darwinian theory of selection has 

 been worked out in its entirety. The mules are worked on the 

 farms from the time they are eighteen months old, till they 

 reach three or four years, when they are sold to dealers for the 

 ' Midi, 1 Spain, Italy, &c. They vary in height, from 15 

 hands to 16.2, on short legs, and a good 16 hands four-year-old 

 mule is worth from 60 to 80. Inferior animals may be 

 purchased at from ^"30 to ^"40 each. The chief fairs are held 

 in the months of January and February, but most of the good 

 animals will have been previously bought privately at the 

 farms, such is the demand that exists for them. A man may 

 buy fifty mules in St. Louis, in the United States, in the same 

 time that it will take him to buy a single mule on a Poitevin 

 farm where bargaining is carried on ad nauseam. The jackass, 

 or baudet, is the most important of all quadrupeds in Poitou. 

 He is the sire of the mules, and as such is the direct means of 

 putting large sums of money into the pockets of the farmers. 

 The price of a young improved animal of two years varies 

 from 80 to 120 ; a good proved mule getter, four years old, 

 from 14 to 15 hands high, is worth from 200 to ^320, and one 

 was sold in the Vendee, just before the Franco-Prussian war, 

 for 400. These valuable animals are kept in a filthy state, 

 are never groomed, and never taken out of the building in 

 which they are kept, except perhaps to be shown to a visitor 

 or possible purchaser. The fee for the service of each mare 

 is from i6s. to 205. The female asses are rarely parted with, 

 except for some defect. Their value may be set down at 

 between ^"24 and ^"40. The Conseil General of the Deux 

 Sevres votes annually the sum of ^200 for prizes for mules 

 and asses at the local shows. These establishments are 

 technically called ' ateliers,' and the fact of owning such an 

 establishment entitles the proprietor to the right to call him- 

 self Maitre,' and gives him a position in the country. Each 



