Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

If this too much abused and derided hybrid could speak, as did one of his far back ancestors, we should claim from them a vote of thanks, for what we have said, and caused to be said, in favor of their claim to kind consideration and treatment. Many years ago, at our suggestion, for he needed no persuasion, the then remaining survivor of the signers of our Declaration of Independence, the venerable Charles Carroll of Carrolton, offered a piece of plate, with appropriate inscriptions, for the best essay on the mule, in comparison with horses and oxen for farm labor.
An admirable essay, on which the prize was worthily bestowed, was written by that inquisitive and active minded observer and gentleman of various knowledge, Willis Pomeroy of Massachusetts. Since then, we have on various occasions embraced opportunities to vindicate the useful qualities of the mule, even for the saddle, over rough and mountainous roads; and in an essay on “the natural history of the ass and the mule,” written while in the office of assistant P. M. G. we took further occasion to assert the excellence and economy of this underrated animal, as a labor-saving operative on a farm. The reader will see that he occupies the front ground in the design, which illustrates the title and purposes of “the plough, the loom, and the anvil,” but we would not know, if we did not choose to tell him, that the place there now occupied by the mules had been assigned by the artists to a pair of sleek horses; on seeing which, we requested him to stick on a longer pair of ears, and a smaller tail, and to otherwise modify the picture, in such manner as should indicate our preference for them over horses, for farm work. In the fox chase, it might be otherwise. They might not under the saddle, be so ready to go at timber; but when worked hard all day and turned out at night in a bare pasture to starve, as they sometimes are, it is admitted they are not slow to get over or through a fence, by hook or by crook-and who can blame them in such case? As to the longevity of mules, we find in a new work on the culture and manufacture of sugar-cane, describing and comparing the East and West India systems, being the result of the author’s sixteen years’ experience as a sugar planter in these regions, the following: “We know that the average working period of a steer, in Jamaica, [West Indies] under favorable circumstances, is ten years; but when a little care has been taken of them, we may safely reckon on fifteen years, [is not that extraordinary?] whilst a mule, with common care, will work for twenty, thirty, and even forty years. I have had four mules, ranging of an age from forty-five to forty-eight years each, as proved by the most undoubted evidence, and all of them at that age taking their regular spells in turn.-[The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil.]