JACKS, JENNETS AND MULES 87 



carriages, as was the custom of the late Queen Isabella 

 of Spain, or in chariot races, as was the custom in the 

 Olympic games five or six hundred years before 

 Christ, then I think the Maltese would be the best, 

 perhaps, of any of the breeds. But none of these 

 things is what the farmer is after. 



We want a powerful draft animal fitted for either 

 the city dray or the cotton or sugar plantation. We 

 have now experimented with the breed for over a 

 hundred years, and he is found to be wanting. He is 

 too small for our purposes. And here I want to men- 

 tion a very important question now facing the breeders 

 of the country, and especially certain portions of it, 

 and which has been made to assume its deserved im- 

 portance by the organization of the American Breed- 

 ers' Association of Jacks and Jennets, and that is. 

 What is the proper or ideal size of the breeding jack 

 or jennet? 



There is a small coterie of breeders in Tennessee, I 

 hope confined to the middle division, who maintain 

 that jennets under fourteen are better breeders than 

 jennets over fourteen hands high, and estimate as 

 worthless the jennet fifteen hands high or over. I 

 am happy to note that the history of the show ring, 

 especially in the great breeding districts of Kentucky, 

 shows that their ideas have never traveled very far 

 away from home, and it is only mentioned because of 

 its effects in the particular section, and because it 

 was intended as an attack on our rules of entry. 



They say they want no overgrown animals. Now, 

 the trouble is that our jennets in Tennessee have at 

 no time been big enough. I agree with the man who 

 says he wants no overgrown animal. What we want 



