398 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



been fashionable, but in low cases are necessary, while in 

 almost all they are decidedly injurious. 



THE STABLE is an important matter connected with the 

 proper management of horses. These should be as much as 

 possible, of an uniform temperature, cool in summer, warm in 

 winter, and always clean, dry, and well ventilated. But no 

 air must be allowed to blow directly upon the animal. The 

 horse is a native of a warm climate, and ought to be well 

 protected against cold. The stable should be neither too 

 light or too dark, nor must the light ever be admitted before 

 the eye of the horse. For judicious and extended arrange- 

 ment of stables, and management of horses, the inquiring 

 reader is referred to Stewart's Stable Economy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE ASS, THE MULE, AND THE COMPARATIVE LABOR 

 OF WORKING ANIMALS. 



THE ASS 



Is a native of Arabia, Persia, and the central parts of Asia 

 and Africa. Like the horse, he goes in troops and displays 

 great natural sagacity, activity and courage. Job says, " he 

 scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth the cry- 

 ing of the driver." Like the horse, too, he has from time 

 immemorial, been tamed, and become the faithful servant of 

 man ; but unlike him, he is subject to few maladies, is hardy 

 and enduring, and subsists, and even thrives, on coarse and 

 scanty forage. Thus Job says of his natural haunts, "Whose 

 house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his 

 dwellings ; the range of the mountains is his pasture, and he 

 searcheth after every green thing." And Xenophon, in his 

 Anabasis, a thousand years later, says of one of the Asiatic 

 deserts through which he passed with the army of Cyrus, 



