MULES. 161 



old, but should never be permitted to do much hard 

 work till four, as they are thus secured from being 

 hurt by hard labour, till they have acquired strength 

 enough to bear it without injury. An expert breeder 

 of these animals found, that feeding them too well 

 while young, though it made them very fat, was far 

 from being any advantage to them ; as it was not only 

 incurring a much larger expense than was any way 

 necessary, but also made them wonderfully nice and 

 delicate in their appetites ever after, and also by 

 increasing their weight of flesh, rendered them more 

 subject to strains and hurts in their morning gambols. 

 He therefore contented himself with giving them food 

 enough to prevent their losing flesh, and to keep up 

 their growth without palling their appetites with deli- 

 cacies, or making them over fat ; he also took care to 

 defend them from the injuries of the weather by allow- 

 ing them stable room, and good litter to sleep on, 

 besides causing them every day to be well rubbed 

 down, with a hard wisp of straw, by an active groom. 

 This was scarcely ever omitted, particularly in cold, 

 raw, wet weather, when they were least inclined to 

 exercise themselves. When three years old, mules 

 are proper for use. 



The shoe for the mule is for the fore foot very simi- 

 lar to that which farriers call the bar shoe. It is very 

 wide and large, especially at the toe, where it some- 

 times projects four inches and upwards beyond the 

 hoof. This excess is given it with a view to enlarge 

 the basis of the foot, which is in general exceedingly 

 narrow in this animal. The shoe for the hind feet is 

 open at the keels like a horse's shoe ; but is lengthened 

 at the toe like the preceding one. Mules are, how- 

 ever, by no means invariably shod in this manner : /t 



