The horses and mules used by the A. E. F. were not included in the bulk sale of property to the French Government. The disposition of them (for few, if any, A. E. F. animals were returned to the United States) was a separate transaction, conducted almost entirely by the Remount Service of the A. E. F., a branch of the Quartermaster Corps. The A. E. F. acquired in all some 243,000 animals at a cost of $82,500,000. More than two-thirds of them were purchased abroad by the Americans. The mules numbered 61,000, and of these approximately half came from the United States, the rest principally from southern France and Spain. About 64,000 animals died in the service, and the rest were sold in Europe either to various governments or to civilians, the recovery from these sales being slightly more than $33,000,000. Thus the net war cost of the animals used by our forces in Europe was approximately $50,000,000. With Americans the horse is (or is supposed to be) a single-purpose animal, used exclusively for his power of motivity, whether that power be exerted for speed or for pulling a load. To many Europeans he also possesses gastronomic value, and this fact enabled the Remount Service to get good prices for condemned horses from the expeditionary corrals. About 11,000 horses, broken down by service, were sold by the A. E. F. to French and German butchers, at an average price of $50 a head. Because of the dearth of farm animals in France, the French Government offered no objection to the sale of the surplus horses and mules directly to private buyers. The chief condition made was that the animals must first be offered (at auction) to farmers whose horses had been requisitioned during the war. If these men would not offer satisfactory prices, then anyone was to be allowed to bid. Then the French Government arranged to take over 15,000 A. E. F. animals and dispose of them for the expedition. The prices obtained from the French Government under this arrangement were so much below what the A. E. F. was obtaining from its auctions that the United States Liquidation Commission sought and received authority to dispose of all the animals at auction. Because of the high taxes and auctioneers’ commissions, even the auction sale was not satisfactory; and the Remount Service asked permission to sell animals at private sale. This permission was never formally granted, but nevertheless the Remount Service went ahead and sold thousands of animals directly to buyers. The average price received from the French Government was $77.58 a head, whereas from the auction and direct sales to private purchasers the average price received was $201.65.