wide; slit it crosswise an inch or so from each end, leaving about an
inch in the centre. Fit this in, in place of the pad of sheepskin, and
you will have a cheaper, more durable, and cooler neck-gear for the
animal. You cannot keep a mule's neck in good condition with heating and
quilted pads. The same is true of padded saddles. I have perhaps ridden
as much as any other man in the service, of my age, and yet I never
could keep a horse's back in good condition with a padded saddle when I
rode over twenty-five or thirty miles a day.

There is another evil which ought to be remedied. I refer now to the
throat-latch. Hundreds of mules are in a measure ruined by allowing the
throat-latch to be worked too tight. A tight throat-latch invariably
makes his head sore. Besides, it interferes with a part which, if it
were not for, you would not have the mule--his wind. I have frequently
known mules' heads so injured by the throat-latch that they would not
allow you to bridle them, or indeed touch their heads. And to bridle a
mule with a sore head requires a little more patience than nature
generally supplies man with.

Let a mule's ears alone. It is very common with teamsters and others,
when they want to harness mules, to catch them by the ears, put twitches
on their ears. Even blacksmiths, who certainly ought to know better, are
in the habit of putting tongs and twitches in their ears when they shoe
them. Now, against all these barbarous and inhuman practices, I here, in
the name of humanity, enter my protest. The animal becomes almost
worthless by the injuries caused by such practices. There are extreme
cases in which the twitch may be resorted to, but it should in all cases
be applied to the nose, and only then when all milder means have failed.

But there is another, and much better, method of handling and overcoming
the vices of refractory mules. I refer to the lariat. Throw the noose
over the head of the unruly mule, then draw him carefully up to a wagon,
as if for the purpose of bridling him. In case he is extremely hard to
bridle, or vicious, throw an additional lariat or rope over his head,
fixing it precisely as represented in the drawing. By this method you
can hold any mule. But even this method had better be avoided unless
where it is absolutely necessary.

It is now August, 1866. We are working five hundred and fifty-eight
animals, from six o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock at night,
and out of this nu