The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1908-10-09
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ou1pCGiluS youth AFOn bnc pn@thAN 20 ~
Missouri or his old Kentucky home,
we pay price ranging from $3.50 to
$275. A four mule pillow team OF this
imported animal costs the Louisiana
planters from $1,000 to Sl100. A four
mule wagon team to haul cane to the
mill in winter the same poor mans
fortune" three mule cart team IN
proportion; and to pull the patent Gull
tiyators that tickle the ground In the
spring to nourish the starting cane
shoots they have outlaid for the
double team concerned $500 to 5000 IN
cold cash or interest bearing promis-
sorry notes. Then 20 feed this AMI
mated adjunct of care UuIture they
have to use about half bushel Of go
cents corn day, or about the same
amount Of 60-cents oats for a daily
diet with liberal filing Of hay and
gallon of molasses thrown In for des-
sert at meals, which long sweetening
should be worth about 20 cents a gal
lon, but as by-product, commands
about 10 cents or less in our leading
mercantile exchanges.
Since the Boer.British war In South
Africa the market price for American
mules has advanced so much as TO
make investments in their purchase
one of the heaviest items in the ex-
pense account of our Louisiana sugar
planting industry, and to threaten the
possibility Of movement toward gem
eral mule-emancipation from q previ-
GUS condition Of servitude by any num-
Der OF fanatical asinopholists who
have recently had their attention call
ed, by the enormous increase in the
money value Of mules, to their labori-.
Gus performance in adding to the agri-
cultural productiveness Of the coun-
try in general and OF the South in par
ticular.
Now while our sugar planters can.
not afford at present 10 dispense with
the mule and his most intimate part
ner In our local agricultural pursuits
they might diminish his labors and
mitigate his cost to certain extent In
conducting their important industry.
In few more years they may hope
to see the muleless plow turning Its
deep and straight loamy burrows, pro-
PEELED by denatured alcohol, manu-
featured from Louisiana molasses, or
gasoline extracted from Louisiana pc
troleum fields, and trains the horseless
wagons loaded with harvested cane
rolling along up to the carriers Of our
central sugar factories, pushed or
drawn by the same marvellous explo-
sive power controlled to economical
employment by inventive men. But
i'm the mean time the growers of cane
and the manufacturers of sugar in our
Pelican state must for a few years,
or, may be, a decade more pay their
big money and depend upon the hybrid
animal power Of distant Missouri and
Kentucky to plow their fields, culti-
yate their crops and haul their cane
to the mills, although they may have,
recently risen to the progressive emf
ence of getting 1t loaded on their wag.
ons by gasoline machine power.
In these times whore practical econ
omy counts for so much in the cost
Of cane culture and sugar manufacture
something might be saved in several
lines by tho substitution of the cheap
er work OF oxen for expensive mule
power on the Louisiana sugar planta-
tions. A pair of well broken oxen
costs inside of 800 against $500 for a
pair of good sugar mules" The ra-
tons Of the working OK cost probably
one-fourth the amount OF the varied
and comparatively sumptuous diet OF
the mule. We may "muzzle not the
OK that treadeth out the corn" and re-
ward him for his toll in the rolling
season with cane-tops as his chief sus-
tenance with an extra bait of molasses
be-sprinhed hay at night. On this
provender which would quickly lead
mule to the bone yard the ruminative
OK would remain strong and grow fat
Now oxen cannot navigate our up
to.date agricultural implements neces.
sAry to the rapid cultivation of our
cane crops; nor can they be used adj
vantageously in hauling cane to the
shed of the active central factory
where enough backing and filing and
'geeing' and having" are necessary
for the close delivery OF the cane to
distract any other animal in the world
than the understanding mule and the
expert darkey driver. But the horned
beasts can do big loo of work which
is now allotted to the more expensive
mule and do 1t mucn cheaper than
the creature of uncloven hoofs and
largely cloven head.
Oxen might be economically used for
fall and winter blowing in place OF
the speedier mule engaged in more
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