90 MULES AND MULE BREEDING. 



generally with small limbs and feet. The Maltese ass, 

 which is also occasionally used, may be described as an 

 " improved Spanish," and is certainly a better animal for 

 the purpose than the normal Spanish ass. If they were to 

 use the Poitou instead of the Spanish or Maltese ass, they 

 would obtain veiy different results. 



Americans have expressed astonishment at the size of 

 the limbs and feet of the mules in Poitou, and admitted 

 that this was a deficiency in the limbs and feet of the 

 American mule which required correcting. 



The late M. Eugene Ayrault, the most intelligent veteri- 

 nary surgeon at JS iort, author of " De I'Industrie Mulassiere," 

 computed that in Poitou 50,000 mares are employed in the 

 mule-producing business, of which number 38,000 are mated 

 with the ass, and the remainder with the horse; in fact, 

 mules and mule-breeding are about the only things talked 

 of in agricultural Poitou. Every farmer, every peasant, 

 every petty proprietor breeds a mule or two, which he knows 

 he is quite certain of selling at a remunerative price at any 

 of the numerous fairs, where the relative value of mules and 

 horses may be pretty nearly arrived at from the fact that, 

 while a charge of twenty centimes is, as a general rule, 

 made for the right to take a horse for sale on to the Place, 

 or wherever the fair may be held, a charge of thirty 

 centimes is made for a mule. 



A great many of the so-called Spanish mules seen in the 

 neighbourhood of the Pyrenees and in the North of Spain 

 are in reality Poitou mules, the Spaniards always attend- 

 ing the Poitou fairs in large numbers for the purpose of 

 buying the mules having the most distinction. The mule 

 merchants from the South of France also buy thousands 

 of mules, which they take with them to Marseilles, Mont- 

 pellier, Toulouse, &c., where the animals bring high prices. 



