Io8 BREEDING AND REARING OF 



ones at home. The general rule in America is to 

 breed to the one most convenient. 



It may be of interest in this connection to note the 

 value of the mule business in Poitou. I have no 

 statistics later than 1866, since which time the coun- 

 try has prospered, and this business has increased 

 in equal or greater proportion to others. This prov- 

 ince is hardly larger than one of our American coun- 

 ties, and we do not mean a Texas county, either, and 

 yet in the year 1866, fifty thousand mares were bred 

 to jacks, and the yearly export of young mules 

 amounted to between two and three millions of dol- 

 lars. This industry there, for profit, is without an 

 equal in agriculture. 



I will add, that the French were the first in the 

 field to establish a jack stock stud book, and the 

 Poitou are the only breed having their own distinctive 

 stud book, in which no other breed is eligible to enter. 

 It has been established some years, and the rules 

 governing entries are stricter than those of our 

 American organization. Like ours, gray animals are 

 not eligible. A thing that is superior to the Amer- 

 ican book is this : No test is made of height, but a 

 complete committee examines each animal sought 

 to be registered ; this committee passes upon the jack 

 and recommends or condemns, upon his merit and 

 pedigree alone. He might be sixteen hands high 

 and yet reflect no credit upon the organization, not- 

 withstanding a good pedigree and color ; or he might 

 be lower than the average good jack and yet be so 

 superior in weight, bone, form and style as to place 

 him in the first rank of breeding jacks. But to fol- 

 low this plan requires money, a thing with which a 



