The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-09-25
Mules HIGH PRICED.
biggest Dealer in America Tells Of
Demand for Them.


and that its definition OF "sullen.
stubborn" is one that mallgnS ever:
mule in the United States. with the
exception of a few "outlaws. says
the New York Times. Mr.. Cottlng-
ham is not photographer, but a
mule dealer, the biggest in the coun-
trv. and in the world, he believes,
and as he has been dealing with
mules for twenty-seven years and
has known hundreds of thousands
of them personally he is inclined to
believe that his definition of q mule
and it's derivatives. speaking meta
phorically. ought to have some weight
as against the evidence of learned
doctors, who speak only by hearsay.
1t is a source of regret with Mr..
Cottingham, who came on yesterday
to meet his wife arriving from Eu-
rope, that the North and East have
not taken the mule to their bosom
as the South has done. He can only
explain this neglect by the existence
hereabout of a tradition that a horse
is better than mule for any KIND
of work and the definition in the
dictionaries that leads people to
think the hybrid lazy and unmanage-
able.
kansas City sold more mules to
the British government during the
South African war than did any other
market" said Mr.. Cottingham yes
terday at the Wolcott. AT that
time the American mule was small
creature, and the sale of the big lot
during that period was not any loss
to this country. Nowadays the farm
ing machinery that mule has to
work would be too heavy for the
mule of ten or twelve years ago.
Since that time mule breeding has
been developed tremendously by the
use of better mares. Twenty years
ago the top price of mules was from
$50 to SIS. The best mules now
fetch anywhere from 1925 to s215,
and the average of the $500 sold
last year was $50. | have seen
some sell for $3.50, and others which
we're intended for show purposes
have brought still bigger prices.
when l started out in the busi-
ness they called me the Gypsy be-
cause l used to travel in a gypsy
wagon" continued Mr.. Cottingham.
Il used to travel some pretty great
distances. 1t was sort of hand-to-
mouth existence, but it is pleasant
to look back upon when you have
come to be doing considerably over
a million and a half dollars worth
of business in year.
while the South is great coun-
try for raising mules, it is not much
for breeding them. Most of the
mules used in this country come from
Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. We
have two big seasons. The season
for what We call cotton mules start
ing in September and lasts until
April. Then the season for sugar
mules begins in June and lasts until
September. The sugar mule is the
best on the market, but the cotton
mule is pretty good. We call them
by those terms because the former
are in demand for work upon sugar
plantations, while the, latter are need
ed for working cotton plantations.
The mule is the incest dumb
brute there is. Why, in my stable in
Kansas City, which has frontage
of 645 feet, 1 don't keep the mules
in stalls, but in pens. They don't
fight, and I can put double the num-
Der of mules there that I could Of
horses, and you could handle those
animals all day long without any
trouble. It's all bosh about their
being harder to handle than horses.
I don't know how the term 'mulish'
was derived, except the man who
first used it might have come up
against what we call an outlaw an
independent cuss of a mule; but
pshaw! there are just as many out
laws among horses as among mules.
Why, I could put 100 mules into one
of your streets here with only three
men to handle them, and they
wouldn't interfere with traffic at all.
A mule becomes very much attached
to the man who drives it. If you
were to lead a procession of 200
mules with an old gray mare, they
would follow her all day, especially
if she had bell on her, and if the
mare went into the water over her
head the mules would go right in,
too. You see they can easily dis
tinguish a gray horse. They will