58 THE MULE. 



exact place for the bulge of the collar, and it is on the 

 point of the mule's shoulder. Some persons use a pad 

 made of sheepskin on the top of the collar. Take it 

 off, for it does no good, and get a piece of thick leather, 

 free from wrinkles, ten or twelve inches long and seven 

 wide ; slit it crosswise an inch or so from each end, 

 leaving about an inch in the centre. Fit this in, in 

 place of the pad of sheepskin, and you will have a 

 cheaper, more durable, and cooler neck-gear for the 

 animal. You cannot keep a mule's neck in good con- 

 dition with heating and quilted pads. The same is true 

 of padded saddles. I have perhaps ridden as much as 

 any other man in the service, of my age, and yet I 

 never could keep a horse's back in good condition with 

 a padded saddle when I rode over twenty-five or thirty 

 miles a day. 



There is another evil which ought to be remedied. 

 I refer now to the throat-latch. Hundreds of mules 

 are in a measure ruined by allowing the throat-latch to 

 be worked too tight. A tight throat-latch invariably 

 makes his head sore. Besides, it interferes with a part 

 which, if it were not for, you would not have the mule — 

 his wind. I have frequently known mules' heads so 

 injured by the throat-latch that they would not allow 

 you to bridle them, or indeed touch their heads. And 

 to bridle a mule with a sore head requires a little more 

 patience than nature generally supplies man with. 



Let a mule's ears alone. It is very common with 

 teamsters and others, when they want to harness mules, 

 to catch them by the ears, put twitches on their ears. 

 Even blacksmiths, who certainly ought to know better, 



