The committee also say that mules are not subject to such ailments as horses--spavin, glanders, ringbone, and bots. If I had the committee here, I would show its members that every other mule in the quartermasters' department, over fifteen and a half hands high, is either spavined, ringboned, or ill some way injured by the above-named diseases. The mule may not be so liable to spavin as the horse, but he has ringbone just the same. I cannot, for the life of me, see how the committee could have fallen into this error. There is this, however, to be taken into consideration: the mule is not of so sensitive a nature as the horse, and will bear pain without showing it in lameness. The close observer, however, can easily detect it. One reason why they do not show spavin and ringbone so much at the horse, is because our blacksmiths do not cut their heels as low as they do a horse's, and consequently that part of the foot is not made to work so hard. If you believe a mule has a ringbone, and yet is not lame, just cut his heel down low, and give him a few good pulls in a muddy place, and he will soon develop to you both lameness and ringbone. Cut his toes down and leave his heels high, and he will not be apt to go lame with it. The committee also say that a Mr. Elliott, of the Patuxent Furnaces, says they hardly ever had a mule die of disease. This is a strange statement; for the poorest teams I ever saw, and the very worst bred stock, were on the Patuxent River, through the southern part of Maryland, and at the markets on Washington City. It is pitiable to see, as you can on market days, the shabby teams driven by the farmers of eastern and southern Maryland. A more broken-hearted, poverty-stricken, and dejected-looking set of teams can be seen nowhere else. The people of Maryland have raised good horses; it is high time they waked up to the necessity, and even profit, of raising a better kind of mule. In regard to the draft power of mules, in comparison with horses, there are various opinions; and yet it is one which ought to be easily settled. I have tested mules to the very utmost of their strength, and it was very rare to find a pair that could draw thirty hundred weight a single year, without being used up completely. Now, it is well known that in the northern and western States you can find any number of pairs of horses that will draw thirty-five and forty hundred weight anywhere. And they will keep doing it, day after day, and retain their condition.