The age-herald., 1899-02-22
WEALTH IN MULES

rTOm the New fOrk sun.
 On January 1, 1S93 there were, according to official figures, 16,2000OO horses in the United States, representing a total value of a little more than a billion dollars, or $1 ,O07 ,593 636 to be exact. At the same time the number of mules in the United States was 2,315,O00, representing total value of $175, ,000, ,000. Since then conditions have op- erated to diminish the commercial calue of horses. the total number of which in the country on January l last was 13700,000, and the estimated value of which was less than $500.0O0,O00 a decrease of more than one-half in six years.
 The horse has had to encounter the ruin ous competition of the bicycle, the electric car, the cable car, the auto-motor and much new improved farming machinery; but these forms of competition which have reduced so largely the number and value of horses in the United States have been of small effect upon the number of mules, though in reducing the demand for them the new conditions have diminished the value. At the present time, taking the whole country, the average value of horse is $35, and taking the whole country except the New England states, where mules are very few in number, the value of a mule is s42. Mules are worth more than horses-a pecuniary degredation for the .'prince of animals and a marked distinc- ton for the patient, humble, long-suffering unmusical American mule, the butt of the paragrapher. the accepted type of stolidity and the time-wasting quadrupled of many parts of the country. The decline in the value of the horse compared to the mule is due to a variety of causes, the first and most important of which is that the de- mand for higher-priced horses has visibly diminished, while the horse of all work of the farm and of the highway remains in great demand. Again, horses have always been in largest demand in level parts of the country. It is in these that the use of me- chanical contrivances has become more general, while mules, in greatest demand in hilIy regions remain in demand in these. A final reason for the greater average value of mules compared with horses is to be found in the question of forage. A horse is very much more expensive to maintain than a mule, aud; moreover, horses are more numerous, relatively, in those parts of the country in which the climate is rigorous and severe than in the mlder regions of the country, in which mules are csleaply housed and cheaply fed. In the state of Minnesota, for instance, there were at the time of the last count 900 horses and only $500 mules, and Min nesota is confessedly one of the states in which winters very severe. In South Carolina on tn other hand, there were on January 65 ,00O horses and 100000 mules and in Georgia there were 10000 horses and 165, 900 mules.
 First among the states of the country in the number of mules is Texas, next comes Missouri and then Georgia and Tennessee. California has a considerable number and Kansas and Arkansas a large number, too. The leading states for horses in respect to their total number and the hay and oat crops to maintain them are Illinois and Iowa. Two states which have. relatively. no mules to speak of when compared with the number of horses, are New York and Michigan. Pennsylvania. because of its coal and iron mining industries, has nearly ten times as many mules as New York.
 The American mule, as has often been truly said, is worthy of much better and higher recognition than popular estimate awards 1t. The American mule Is an anil mai of endurance and an important factor in the wealth of the agricultural states, more particularly in the great cotton belt. where "ten acres and a mule" Is the meas UT of the ambition of many. of the negro tenant faxmar&