76 MULES AND MULE BBEEDING. 



cavalry I met in January last, in six inches of snow, after a 

 march of eighteen days through a country where they had to 

 haul their own feed and supplies, and compare the mules with 

 the outfits after the autumn manoeuvres, as I saw them some 

 few years ago. Mules, weight for weight, will pull more than 

 horses, live on less, and ' come down in a tight ' more times. 



" Now for farm work ; there is a patch of 250 acres of wheat a 

 few miles trom here, where last spring was open prairie, that 

 was ploughed and planted with two span of mules, and looks as 

 well as any farmer can desire. With a good sulky plough, 

 which does not tire the driver, a span will plough two to thrte 

 acres j)er day. 



" For saddle or driving, if a man has a really good saddle mule, 

 he is like the kings and great men of old; he would not trade 

 for all the horses in the country. They are as pleasant to drive, 

 and if properly handled as gentle and good-conditioned, as 

 horses." 



Another writer recounts the advantages which as beasts 

 of burden they possess over the horse : — 



" First, their working life is longer, in the ratio of about five 

 to two, than that of a horse ; secondly, they can live and thrive 

 upon food which soon reduces a horse to a weak and helpless 

 skeleton ; thirdly, they are indifferent to heat or cold ; fourthly, 

 they never know what it is to be sick ; fifthly, they can work day 

 and night without being worn out ; sixthly, they walk quicker 

 than horses ; seventhly, being light of limb and biilky of body, 

 their weight isl^etter disposed for moving heavy loads; eighthly, 

 they are, when of full size, considerably stronger than a team of 

 equal-numbered horses. I might repeat many other lesser 

 advantages which they possess. But at a time when horse 

 fodder of all kinds is continually rising in price, a farmer who 

 has from ten to twenty horses to keep would soon find how much 

 he would save in a year were he to replace them with mules ; 

 while, into the bargain, he would get twenty-five years of work 

 <jut of a fine mule where it is rare for a horse to last more than 

 from ten to twelve years." 



