Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1906-04-24
Department Of Agriculture Plans Elk
periments with Zebra with
This End ia View.

The United States department
Of agriculture has obtained ze-
bra. There have been trying days
for the department lately, what
with the Keep commission inves-
tigating its bureaus and skeptics
rriticising crop estimates, so that
the acquisition Of an animal as I'M
familiar as the zebra is something
of a consolation especially when
coming after long quest. Theex-
pectation of the department of
agriculture is that the zebraiza-
ton of American draft animals
will add greatly to the economic
resources of the nation. Zebras
are known to be swift of foot and
strong Of sinew. Their wild blood
will impart to that of the horse
and its cOngeners just the desira-
BILE qualities that will enable the
draft animal to be trotter at its
owner's will.
The zebra has done well in har-
ness. There was once one of the
London ROthschilds who aston
ished the natives by driving
Zebra in a light buggy. Once your
zebra is broken he is tractable
beast save when memories of his
home rise in him to trouble his
driver and they are said to rise
quite frequently. The zebra's pc
culiarities and the difficulty at
tending upon first catching your
zebra have heretofore prevented
his employment, economically.
but the department of agriculture
is sanguine that, proper conditions
being secured, its experiment will
be successful. If these hopes are
justified by the event shall we
witness strangely transmOgrifed
animals in our streets? Will our
eyes be gladdened, for instance,
by striped mules? The striped
pig lives in song and story, but the
striped mule may come or even the
checked or arabesque mule to add
to the gayety of transportation.
A striped mule will be noble
sight, far more eye-arresting than
the calico horse. Everything, of
course, depends upon acclimatiOn.
The zebra may not have the nerv-
GUS versatility required to catch
our climate as it flies and keep up
with its changes. Much has been
Expected of other strange animals
we have imported, only to suffer
disappointment Fifty years ago,
when Jefferson Davis was secrc-
tary of war and people believed in
the existence of the Great Ameri-
can Desert" our government got
the notion into it's head that cam
els would solve the problem of
transportation of army supplies.
A ship load of camels was import
ed and were employed in Texas,
but they did not take kindly to
the change and never became in
lfuential factors of progress. They
did not increase and probably long
ago mingled their bones with the
Texas soil. Once in a while a
southwestern paper tells us that
some one has seen a camel, be
lieved to be the last Of that bright
band, but there is a lack of speci-
ficatiOn in these narratives that
prevents confidence.
One of the yarns that had it's
origin in the presence of the herd
of government camels is that
some of the animals went north
ward and crossed with the elk. A
strange animal, the camelkO, was
said to have been seen by soldiers
returning from the suffers and
this report received so much Gre
dence in the east that a New York |
paper sent out a commissioner to
find the haunts of the creature. |
He was passed from post to post, |
only to learn that the camelko dis
appeared the night before he ar
rived.