s Department. If this were done, it would go far to
establish a system that would check that great destruction of animal
life which costs the Government so heavy a sum every year.

H.R.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _April 12, 1867_.

NOTE.

I have, in another part of this work, spoken of the mule as being free
from splint. Perhaps I should have said that I had never seen one that
had it, notwithstanding the number I have had to do with. There are, I
know, persons who assert that they have seen mules that had it. I ought
to mention here, also, by way of correction, that there is another
ailment the mule does not have in common with the horse, and that is
quarter-crack. The same cause that keeps them from having quarter-crack
preserves them from splint--the want of front action.

A great many persons insist that a mule has no marrow in the bones of
his legs. This is a very singular error. The bone of the mule's leg has
a cavity, and is as well filled with marrow as the horse's. It also
varies in just the same proportion as in the horse's leg. The feet of
some mules, however, will crack and split, but in most cases it is the
result of bad shoeing. It at times occurs from a lack of moisture to the
foot; and is seen among mules used in cities, where there are no
facilities for driving them into running water every day, to soften the
feet and keep them moist.

CONTENTS.

Best Method of Breaking
Value of Kind Treatment
How to Harness
Injured by Working too Young
What the Mule can Endure
Color and Peculiar Habits
Mexican Mules, and Packing
The Agricultural Committee
Working Condition of Mules
Spotted Mules
Mule-Breeding and Raising
How Colts should be Handled
Packing Mules
Physical Constitution
Value of Harnessing Properly
Government Wagons
More about Breeding Mules
Ancient History of the Mule
Table of Statistics
14 Portraits of Celebrated Mules
Diseases Common to the Mule, and how they should be treated

CHAPTER I.
HOW MULES SHOULD BE TREATED IN BREAKING.

I have long had it in contemplation to write something concerning the
mule, in the hope that it might be of benefit to those who had to deal
with him, as well in as out of the army, and make them better acquainted
with his habits and usefulness. The patient, plodding mule is indeed an
animal that has served us well in the army, and done a great amount of
good for humanity during the late war. He was in truth