Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1916-04-01
Dixie Goes Ahead
XIV. The Rise of the Mule.
BY FREDERIC J. HASK1N

are at the stockyards almost daily.
They have purchased fifteen thousand
mules from one firm, paying nearly two
hundred dollars apiece for them. A
good sound mule at least thousand
pounds in weight is what the military
men like. The price for such mules
ranges from $1S5 to 1885. You can get
any sort of mule you want in the At
lanta market, however, from a forty
dollar runt to fifteen hundred pound
giant in perfect condition.
The mule trading in Atlanta takes
place almost wholly between October
and March. During the season last
year about $4,000 males changed
hands. They are shipped in from all
parts of the south in lots of four to
one hundred or more, and are turned
over to the commission men, who own
the immense stock yard barns covering
some twenty-five acres. The buyers,
with the exception of those from
Europe, are dealers from various
small towns and country districts.
They buy mules in lots of twenty or
more, take them home and retail them
to the farmers, making an average pro-
fit of perhaps fifteen or twenty dollars
upon mules of the better grades. Thus
Atlanta acts as clearing house
through which large part of the
south buys and sells its mules.
In Atlanta the business is carried
forward with great directness and up
on a high plane Of honesty. Every
sale is a contest in judgment; but
there is no effort to conceal the de-
fects in the mules II an animal has
q splint or is wind broken the fact is
not concealed and deduction in price
made accordingly. There is something
of speculative character in the trad
ing as the value of mules sometimes
fluctuates from fve to ten per cent in
a few months The growing Importance
of the mule is seen. in the fact that the
average price has increased about
twenty per cent in the last ten years.
The Atlanta livestock business Is
largely in the hands of few families.
who have been trading horses and
mules for generations. The story OF
one family here, which is prominent In
the trade, is complete history OF the
mule business in the south. The great
grandfather of the present head of the
business owned big plantation In
Georgia and every year he drove to
Atlanta about 600 mules which he rails
ed or bought from his neighbors. He
auctioned them off in the city and was
considered to be doing an enormous
business.
His son. the grandfather of the con-
temporary scion, thought the business
could be enlarged by reaching wider
market. He formed gypsy bands
who wandered all over the south with
their droves of mules, selling them to
farmers along the way: In this way
he disposed of two thousand mules in
a year.
Then came the railroads, pouring
mules into Atlanta by the thousand.
ANY number over four mules took a
carload rate. 1t was possible to reach
the most distant farmer in few hours.
So the representative of the third gen.
Grafton sold sixty thousand mules In
a single year, and his son, the present
owner of the business has increased 1t
still further. He sometimes has ten
thousand mules in his stables at a
time-more mules than his great
grandfather ever saw.
Although the horse business has
shrunk by comparison with the mule
trade, thousands of horses are still
sold annually in the Atlanta market.
The horse has seen the days OF his
greatest glory beyond doubt. Not so
the mule. In war as In peace he is
king of hard labor-and Atlanta Is his
southern capital.
annears at last TO have been discovered