10
Table showing the progress of mule-breeding in Sind.
Year.
1882-83 ... ...
1883-84 ... ...
1884-85 ... ...
1885-86 ... ...
1886-87 ... ...
1887-88 ... ...
1888-89 ... ...
1889-90 ... ...
1890-91 ... ...
1891-92 ... ...
1892-93 ... ...
1893-94 ... ...
1894-95 ... ...
1895-96 ... ...
1896-97 ... ...
Stallions.
1.0
4.16
6.57
8.88
15.08
18.22
19.25
19.00
20.00
23.13
19.13
17.40
18.00
18.81
22.40
Mares
covered.
4
140
214
278
570
751
838
797
846
988
814
788
687
786
693
Produce.
3
18
10
40
61
81
66
57
83
92
99
91
89
106
164
Mares
covered per
stallion.
4.0
33.65
32.57
34.57
37.79
41.21
43.53
41.94
42.3
44.64
42.55
45.28
38.16
41.78
30.93
Produce
per
stallion.
3.0
5.62
4.80
9.09
9.80
11.37
6.38
4.52
4.88
6.74
5.17
5.95
4.94
5.64
7.32
Remarks.
sind.
24. Mule-breeding was commenced in Sind in the year 1882 and the above
table will show what progress has been made. The
majority of the stallions have been concentrated
in the Shikárpur and Jacobabad districts. But stallions have within the
last few years been placed in the Hyderabad District, where the industry has taken
root rapidly and promises to flourish. The Sindi, I think, prefers breeding
a mule to a horse, and if only some scheme could be devised whereby a market
could be found for all young mule stock, I feel sure that the industry
would make very much more rapid progress than it has hitherto done. The
proposed scheme of the Government of India, for allowing all mares whe-
ther branded or not to be covered by donkey stallions, is a step in the right
direction, although I wish to bring to the notice of Government that the rule of
covering only branded mares has been more or less held in abeyance for several
years, and the general principle followed out that no mare, no matter how bad
she may be, is unfit to be mated with a donkey stallion, as it is an undoubted
fact that some of our best and most shapely mules are out of the most unsound
and ill-shaped mares in India. Parts of Sind can, therefore, be classed as dis-
tinctly good, and capable of still further improvement.
Breeding from
donkey
mares.
25. Owing to the failure which attended all efforts to breed mules in this
Presidency an alternative scheme was suggested by the
late Colonel Humfrey of covering donkey mares with
selected Pegu-pony stallions. The subject of donkey
mares was carefully gone into by me, and it was found that throughout this
Presidency and in Sind the majority of the donkeys were either the property of
bunnyas, who owned one or two, or small contractors, who owned from 20 to 30.
The former are men who seldom breed from their animals, while the latter are
generally very poor, and whose donkeys earn a precarious livelihood by grazing
along the sides of the roads, and are worked long before they are capable of
carrying a load. I saw no prospect of success attending a scheme where 90 per
cent. of the donkey mares belonged to the above class of men, and could not see
how it was possible for animals bred and reared under such adverse conditions
ever to grow, and become useful for transport purposes. For this reason I was
strongly opposed to trying the experiment of spending Government money on so
hopeless a venture.
26. A short summary of the above goes to prove that under present con-
ditions it is both a waste of time and money to attempt to breed mules in the
Presidency Proper; that State aid in Káthiáwár will, no doubt, produce a certain
number annually, but the conditions under which it is proposed to carry on the
industry must necessarily ristrict any large output, at any rate for several years