The Republican journal., 1911-01-19

of other things which are difficult to
raise in Maine.
Tonight's paper proclaims it as fact
that Missouri has been advanced to the
third place in the Union as corn pro-
ducing State. One of the best and most
profitable of all products, excepting the
hen, is the Missouri mule. He it is,
with all his queer antics and eccentrici-
ties, that brings in the coin. | sold two
this year, one three-year-o for $167.5
and one at weaving time for $3.50.
Every year we raise most profitable
crop of mules, but where such quantities
come from and where they go to is a
problem; but from now on buyers from
all sections will pick them up around
Springfield in car load lots and ship them
out of town, going largely south. Mules
are queer creatures, easily kept, seldom
out of health, and live to great age.
Some say they are vicious, buta friend of
mine who has handled and worked them
for twenty years informs me that he has
never had one kick from mule; but
whether this fact is due to the gentle
ness of the mules disposition, or to my
friends agility in side-stepping do not
know. One thing is sure, they are full
of antics. Turn fifty or a hundred of
them loose in a yard and they will run and
jump and rear and buck and kick and
bite for all they are worth; and some
times when two or three run together in
a pasture other animals as we'll as them
selves must keep open eyes and keep
out of corner. Many people greatly
admire them. Their coupling, their
limbs, their heads, their ears, are objects
of interest, if not of beauty. And they
are always salable, at any time and any
age. The horse market is uncertain.
You may have to keep a colt for three
years until it attains some maturity and
then bide your time for purchaser; but
the mule buyer is nearly always on hand.
to pick them up. There is S ready
market for him in ones, two's, tens,
twenty's or carload lots, as for granted
steers. Only the value is determined by
the color, size, height, form and sex. A
mare mule is worth from five to fif-
teen dollars more than horse mule of
the same condition, color, form, etc. Yes
terday l was waiting for few moments
at the Frisco yard Office. On the track
just outside were two car loads of mules
which the shipper said had cost him
SO, 800. One car had cost him an aver
age of $204 per head. When you, Mr..
Editor, become weary of pushing the
pencil, or perhaps l ought to say, die
tating to your stenographer the products
of your fertile brain for the instruction,
amusement and uplifting of the people
in the State of Maine, sell out, leave the
task to others hands, come west and buy
ranch in grand old Missouri, stock it up
for mule ranch and in ''the good old
summer time" you can sit under the
shade Of your maple trees and see them
grow with the assurance that, barring
accidents, your bank accounts will grow
faster and be equally as safe as govern
ment or the Springfield water works,
bonds, the interest or earnings of which
in large volume go to increase the for
tunes of the Maine capitalists who are
owners of the stock. Potatoes, wheat,
corn, oats and other agricultural pro-
ducts require lot of labor to bring re-
turns, but about all you have to do with
the mule is to turn him loose in good
pasture with plenty of water and watch
him grow at the rate of over one dollar
per week until he is three or four years
old, when you exchange him for pocket
full of greenbacks, coupled with the
further satisfaction that you have grown
useful animal. You sell him in the
southern market and he cultivates your
cotton; in the cities and he hauls your
loads of merchandise. If war breaks
out anywhere this side of Mars you may
depend upon it that his services will be
in demand, as was evidenced in the con-
test of 1865 and the more recent Boer
war in Africa. If it were not for the
fact that am tied by instinct and long
career of city experiences from which it
is hard to turn away, and wife who
positively refuses to quit her domicile in
Springfield, would soon quit the vexa-
lions and exertions of city business and
go into the business of raising mules. On
this subject 1 must not expatiate at
greater length, however, lest your read
ers in too large numbers catch the in
SEPARATION and come west and the business
should be overdone.
must bring this scribble to close
and get it off by today's mail, or it will
go the way Of some previous scribbling
Children CRY
End EIEfcuERs&