MULES. 191 



being taken off his feed till the boats are about to be 

 launched in the spring, and in a few days can be made 

 fit for efficient duty — while a horse will require at least 

 half feed if he does nothing, or must be fed high for 

 some time before he can resume the labour that will 

 be demanded of him. The same advantages may be 

 derived by his employment on railways. 



In a communication published in the Utica Observer, 

 the 16th of May, inst. by Henry Seymour, Esq. one of 

 the canal commissioners of New York, it is stated that a 

 packet boat on the Erie Canal, requires a team of three 

 horses to tow sixteen miles, going eighty miles in the 

 twenty-four hours, including stoppages and detention 

 at locks ; the relays demanding fifteen horses for each 

 nautical day. If it takes five days for a boat to be 

 towed from Lake Erie to the Hudson, seventy-five 

 horses will be required. I am not certain but it may 

 be done in a less time, but as there must always be 

 supernumeraries kept, we shall be within bounds to 

 estimate that number. In the same communication the 

 expense of each horse is estimated at fifty cents per 

 day, I presume for subsistence only, without reference 

 to interest or deterioration of capital, for the object 

 of the estimate seems merely to show a comparison 

 between the packet boats and freight boats, on a ques- 

 tion of profit and loss: as it is remarked that "many 

 contingent expenses might be added to both." Taking 

 this data, it will cost thirty- five dollars per day for the 

 horse subsistence of a single packet boat. The freight 

 boats require two, and allowing for the time occupied 

 in taking in and discharging their cargoes, with the 

 other necessary detentions, average forty miles per 

 day — which being double the time of the packet boats, 

 although they may not require the same number of 

 relays, the expense cannot materially differ. From 



