MULES. 183 



correct system of breeding and management, in which 

 our countrymen are so generally deficient, consequently 

 more perfect animals and such an advance in the price 

 of them, that will afford the farmer what he is now a 

 stranger to such remuneration as will make his brood 

 mares a profitable species of stock. And it is obvious 

 that the system will be followed by an improvement in 

 the breed of mules, in the same ratio as the miserable 

 race of scrub mares, which are now consuming the 

 profits of agriculture, shall become extinct. 



It does not appear that the horse was employed by 

 the ancients for any purpose of husbandry. The ox and 

 ass drew the plough and the wain, and performed all 

 kinds of drudgery until after the feudal system was 

 established in Europe, when the numerous retainers of 

 the feudal lords, who held their lands by the tenure of 

 performing knight's service, found themselves under 

 the necessity of making the horses they were obliged 

 to keep, contribute towards their support in the culti- 

 vation. From this time I believe, we may date, and 

 from this cause may be attributed the introduction of 

 the horse for the purposes of agriculture. Since that 

 period, the history of Europe is little else than the 

 annals of war and its preparations ; and no material 

 for that scourge, except the deluded human victims, 

 seems more necessary than the horse accordingly we 

 find that throughout the whole country, from the Rhine 

 or the Seine, to beyond the Danube and Vistula, which 

 has been the principal arena, the system of agriculture 

 has embraced, extensively, the breeding of horses of 

 different grades and forms adapted to the several uses 

 in war. Indeed whole provinces were appropriated 

 almost exclusively to the rearing those animals for 

 disposal to the different combatants ; and it must be 

 17 



