848 



THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 



THE MULE. 



The longevity of the Mule has become so proverbial, 

 that a purchaser seldom inquires his age. Pliny gives an 

 account of one, taken from Grecian history, that was eighty 

 years old ; and though past labour, followed others that were 

 carrying materials to build the temple of Minerva at Athens, 

 and seemed to wish to assist them; which so pleased the 

 people, that they ordered he should have free egress to the 

 grain market. Dr. Rees mentions two tliat were seventy 

 years old in England. I saw, myself, in the West Indies, 

 a mule perform his task in a cane mill, that his owner as- 

 sured me was forty years old. I now own a mare mule 

 twenty-five years old, that I have had in constant work 

 twenty-one years, and can discover no diminution in her 

 powers; she has within a year past often taken upwards of 

 a ton weight in a wagon to Boston, a distance of more than 

 five miles. A gentleman in my neighborliood has owned a 

 very large mule about fourteen years, that cannot be less 

 than twenty-eight years old. He informed me a few days 

 since, tliat he coidd not perceive the least failure in him, 

 and would not exchange him for any farm horse in the 

 county. And I am just informed, from a source entitled to 

 perfect confidence, that a highly respectable gentleman and 

 eminent agriculturalist, near Centreville, on the Eastern 

 Shore of Maryland, owns a mule, that is thirty-five years 

 old, as capable of labour as at any former period. 



The great Roman naturalist, in one of the most beautiful 

 passages of his elaborate history of nature, observes that 

 "the earth is constantly teased more to furnish the luxuries 

 of man than his necessities."* We can have no doubt but 

 that the remark applied with great justice to the habits of 

 the Romans in the time of Pliny; and I am mucii mistaken 

 if ample proofs cannot be adduced, that it will lose none of 

 its force or truth, at this present period, in all northern cli- 

 mates, or any section of the United States where the horse 

 is employed for agriculture as well as for pleasure. Far be 

 it from me, however, to disparage this noble animal; on the 

 contrary I feel a strong attachment for him; and at the same 

 time a full conviction, that the substitution of the mule, for 



* It is the earth that, like a kind mother receives us at ova birth, and sus- 

 tains us when born. It is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is 

 never found an enemy to man. The body of waters deluge him with rains, 

 oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations: the air rushes on 

 in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gen- 

 tle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walks 

 with flowers, and his table with plenty; returns with interest every good 

 committed to her care, and though she produces tlie poison, she still supplies 

 tlie antidote, though constantly teased more to furnish the lu.furics of man, 

 than his necessities, yet even to the last, she continues her kind indulgence, 

 and when life is over, she piously hides his remains in her bosom. 



Pliny's Natural History, Book II. Chap. 63. 



the purposes before stated, as extensively as may be consis- 

 tent with the requisite production of each species, will have 

 the effect of restoring the horse to the station from which 

 he has been degraded, and place him as in former ages, upon 

 a more dignified footing, an object of acknowledged luxury; 

 and thereby introduce a more correct system of breeding 

 and management, in which our countrymen are so gene- 

 rally 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 improve- 

 ment in the breed of mules, in the same ratio as the misera- 

 ble race of scrub mares, which arc now consuming the pro- 

 fits 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 tlie 

 horses they were obliged to keep, contribute towards their 

 support in the cultivation. From this time I believe, we 

 may date, and from this cause may be attributed, the intro- 

 duction of the horse for the purposes of agriculture. Since 

 that period, the history of Europe is little else than the an- 

 nals 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 through- 

 out the whole country, from the Rhine or the Seine, to 

 beyond the Danube and Vistula, which has been the princi- 

 pal arena, the system of agriculture has embraced, exten- 

 sively, the breeding of horses of different grades and forms 

 adapted to the several uses in war. Indeed, whole pro- 

 vinces were appropriated almost exclusively to the rearing 

 those animals for disposal to the different combatants; and it 

 must be obvious, that their general use in husbandry, at the 

 same time, would follow as a necessary consequence. It 

 cannot be expected therefore, but that the Dutch and Ger- 

 mans who have emigrated to our coimtry, should bring 

 with them such strong predilections for the horse, which 

 have continued with most of their descendants, especially in 

 those sections where communities of that respectable and 

 industrious portion of our population have been located. 

 In Great Britain, to the causes which have produced the 

 effects described on the continent, may be added the insular 

 position of the United Kingdoms, vulnerable from number- 

 less and distant points, the horse has been considered, in 

 connection with the unconquerable spirit of the nation, as 

 one of the most efficient means of repelling invasion: a cir- 



