“They are also good for light harness, many of them being very useful buggy animals, traveling a day’s journey equal to some horses. The writer obtained one from a firm of jack breeders in his vicinity, that was bred by them, as an experiment, being out of a Thoroughbred mare by a royally bred jack. She is 16 hands high, as courageous as most any horse. In traveling a distance of thirty-two miles, this mule, with two men and the baggage, made it, as the saying goes, ‘under a pull,’ in four hours, and when arrived at the journey’s end seemed willing to go on. “We do not wish to be understood as underrating the horse, for it is a noble animal, well suited for man’s wants, but for burden-bearing and drudgery is more than equaled by the patient, faithful, hardy mule. “There are two kinds of jacks—the mule-breeding and the ass-breeding jack, the latter being used chiefly in breeding jacks for stock purposes. It is only with the mule-breeding jack that we will deal. “A good mule-jack ought to be not less than 15 hands high, and have all of the weight, head, ear, foot, bone, and length that can be obtained, coupled with a broad chest, wide hips, and with all the style attainable with these qualities. Smaller jacks are often fine breeders, and produce some of our best mules, and when bred to the heavier, larger class of mares show good results, but as ‘like produces like,’ the larger jacks are preferable. “Black, with light points, is the favorite color for a jack, but many of our gray, blue, and even white jacks have produced good mules. In fact, some of the nicest, smoothest, red-sorrel mules have been the product of these off-colored jacks; but the black jacks get the largest proportion of good-colored colts from all colored mares.