92 MULES AND MULE BREEDING. 



him. The mule being naturally nervous and timid 

 it is necessary to exercise great patience and kind- 

 ness in breaking him. It is this nervousness which is so 

 often mistaken for vice by the ignorant, and which has 

 given the mule a bad name with those who, not having 

 studied his nature, have often turned a really tractable 

 though nervous animal into a dangerous vicious brute by 

 beating and ill-using him. Patience and kindness, com- 

 bined with firmness and a knowledge of the animal's 

 nature, will almost always succeed where brutality has been 

 exercised in vain, and long and careful observation proves 

 that the Poitou ass, coupled with English cart mares, 

 would give us mules which, with our system of feeding 

 and management, would furnish the farmer, the brewer, 

 the coal merchant, the miller, the timber merchant, the 

 owuer of barges (mules are far better than horses for 

 towing), &c., with the most economical form of horse 

 labour possible. 



It is well known to agriculturists that, however com- 

 paratively light and easy in the draught a reaping 

 machine may be, no one pair of horses can go on working 

 it all day without change. A horse sickens of always 

 having his shoulders home in the collar, and prefers work 

 of more give-and-take character. Not so the mule. He 

 will go plodding on all day and every day, unceasingly, 

 and heavy draught mules, with the necessary weight, 

 are very valuable for this purpose — a point worthy of 

 consideration and trial by entei-prising agriculturists and 

 machine makers. 



The saving that would be effected if mules were more 

 generally used in our army transport service instead of 

 horses it is hardly necessary to point out. The use of 

 mules for transport and for ambulance waggons could not 



