quartermasters' department, over fifteen and a half hands high, is
either spavined, ringboned, or ill some way injured by the above-named
diseases. The mule may not be so liable to spavin as the horse, but he
has ringbone just the same. I cannot, for the life of me, see how the
committee could have fallen into this error. There is this, however, to
be taken into consideration: the mule is not of so sensitive a nature as
the horse, and will bear pain without showing it in lameness. The close
observer, however, can easily detect it. One reason why they do not show
spavin and ringbone so much at the horse, is because our blacksmiths do
not cut their heels as low as they do a horse's, and consequently that
part of the foot is not made to work so hard. If you believe a mule has
a ringbone, and yet is not lame, just cut his heel down low, and give
him a few good pulls in a muddy place, and he will soon develop to you
both lameness and ringbone. Cut his toes down and leave his heels high,
and he will not be apt to go lame with it.

The committee also say that a Mr. Elliott, of the Patuxent Furnaces,
says they hardly ever had a mule die of disease. This is a strange
statement; for the poorest teams I ever saw, and the very worst bred
stock, were on the Patuxent River, through the southern part of
Maryland, and at the markets on Washington City. It is pitiable to see,
as you can on market days, the shabby teams driven by the farmers of
eastern and southern Maryland. A more broken-hearted, poverty-stricken,
and dejected-looking set of teams can be seen nowhere else. The people
of Maryland have raised good horses; it is high time they waked up to
the necessity, and even profit, of raising a better kind of mule.

In regard to the draft power of mules, in comparison with horses, there
are various opinions; and yet it is one which ought to be easily
settled. I have tested mules to the very utmost of their strength, and