MULE-BREEDING. 183 



is issued only to be reported within a week of his arrival at an outstand 

 as refusing his mares. He has then to be marched back, and frequently 

 the weary round of teaching and testing to be gone through again. 

 MARES FOR MULE-BREEDING. 



15. A mare to breed good mules should be a low, lengthy, cobby 

 animal, 13 hands to 13*3, with short shanks, good bone, not too sloping 

 pasterns, good depth, not narrow in front and fairly straight behind. 

 Soundness from hereditary affections is not so imperative as in select- 

 ing a dam to breed horses, though, of course, the sounder she is the 

 better. As in the brood mare proper, the best age is between six and 

 twelve. An old mare will throw a good mule. Senility of the sire or 

 dam does not affect the produce to anything like the extent that it 

 does in horse-breeding. It would be advisable though to mate an old 

 mare with a young and vigorous jack and vice versa. In America it 

 is the practice, when a mare is considered too old for the horse, to get 

 a mule or even two from her. An American Artillery Officer assured 

 me that excellent mules were obtained in this way. I have on two or 

 three occasions induced Zamindars to put an old dam to the donkey, 

 but only saw the result once. He was certainly a very promising 

 little beast, but too young to judge. 



Authorities on the subject tell us that the size of the mule depends 

 on the mare ; this of course is true. But small mares produce much 

 larger mules than themselves. One often sees. an eighteen-month old 

 mule standing higher than his dam by an inch „or two. 



MULES. 



16. Mules from 13 to 13*3 are the best. Below this they are often 

 not strong enough. Above this height involves a large amount of 

 extra work in lifting their loads from the ground to the saddle. 



The back should be long and straight, to give plenty of room for the 

 pack ; a slight inclination to convexity, viz., roach back, may, however, 

 be overlooked. A concave, dipped or hollow back is, however, a serious 

 defect. With such a conformation there is not room for the pack 

 saddle, and galls are very likely to occur owing to the difficulties in 

 adjusting the panels to the curve. The shoulders may be a bit straight 

 without much detriment, but his shank should be short, and have 

 plenty of bone. Pasterns should not be much sloped. There ought 

 to be plenty of depth, but not too much roundness of rib. The latter, 

 though a good point in many ways, does not give a flat support for 



10 



