him in again to-morrow, that he will go
right off, and do any thing you want him. It is best always to get a
young mule well used to the harness before you try to work him in a
team. When you get him so that he is not afraid of the harness, you may
consider your mule two-thirds broke.

I have seen it asserted that a team of mules was more easily handled
than a team of horses. It is impossible that this can be so, for the
reason that you never can make a mule as bridle-wise as a horse. To
further prove that this cannot be so, let any reinsman put as many mules
together as there are horses in the "band wagon" of a show, or circus,
and see what he can do with them. There is not a driver living who can
rein them with the same safety that he can a horse, and for the very
reason, that whenever the mule finds that he has the advantage of you,
he will keep it in spite of all you can do.

_Mule Raising_.--I never could understand why it was that almost every
person, that raises stock, recommends big, ugly gollips of mares, for
mule-breeding. The principle is certainly a wrong one, as a little study
of nature must show. To produce a good, well-proportioned mule, you must
have a good, compact, and serviceable mare. It is just as necessary as
in the crossing of any other animal. It certainly is more profitable to
raise good animals than poor ones; and you cannot raise good mules from
bad mares, no matter what the jack is. You invariably see the bad mare
in the flabby, long-legged mule.

It has been held by some of our officers, that the mule was a better
animal for Government service, because he required less care and feed
than the horse, and would go longer without water. This, again, is a
grave mistake. The mule, if properly taken care of, requires nearly as
much forage as the horse, and should be groomed and cared for just the
same. I refer now to team animals. Such statements do a great deal of
injury, inasmuch as they encourage the men who have charge of animals to
neglect and abuse them. The teamster who hears his superior talk in this
way will soon take advantage of it. Animals of all kinds, in a wild and
natural state, have a way of keeping themselves clean. If left wild, the
mule would do it. But when man deprives them of the privileges by tying
them up and domesticating them, he must assist them in the most natural
way to keep themselves clean. And this assistance the animal appreciates
to its fullest extent.

_How t