The bit should be one inch and seven-eighths round, and five inches in the draw, or between the rings.  It should also have a sweep of one quarter of an inch to the five inches long.  I refer now to the bit for the blind bridle.  With a bit of this kind it is almost impossible to injure the mule’s mouth, unless he is very young, and it cannot be done then if the animal is handled with proper care.

There is another matter in regard to harnessing the mule which I deem worthy of notice here.  Government teamsters, as a general thing, like to see a mule’s head reined tightly up.  I confess that, with all my experience, I have never seen the benefit there was to be derived from this.  I always found that the mule worked better when allowed to carry his head and neck in a natural position.  When not reined up at all, he will do more work, out-pull, and wear out the one that is.  At present, nearly all the Government mule-teams are reined up, and worked with a single rein.  This is the old Virginia way of driving mules.  It used to be said that any negro knew enough to drive mules.  I fear the Government has too long acted on that idea.

I never heard but one reason given for reining the heads of a mule-team up tight, and that was, that it made the animals look better.

The next thing requiring particular attention is the harnessing.  During the war it became customary to cut the drawing-chains, or, as some call them, the trace-chains.  The object of this was, to bring the mule close up to his work.  The theory was taken from the strings of horses used in drawing railroad cars through cities.  Horses that are used for hauling cars in this manner are generally fed morning, noon, and night; and are able to get out of the way of a swingle-tree, should it be let down so low as to work on the brakes, as it did too frequently in the army.  Besides, the coupling of the car, or the part they attach the horse to, is two-thirds the height of a common-sized animal, which, it will be seen at a glance, is enough to keep the swingle-tree off his heels.  Now, the tongue of a Government wagon is a very different thing.  In its proper condition, it is about on an average height with the mule’s hocks; and, especially during the last two years of the war, it was customary to pull the mule so close up to the swingle-tree that his hocks would touch it.  The result of hitching in this manner is, that the mule is continually trying to keep out of the way of the swingle-tree, and, finding that he cannot succeed, he becomes discouraged.  And as soon as he does this he will lag behind; and as he gets sore from this continual banging, he will spread his hind legs and try to avoid the blows; and, in doing this, he forgets his business and becomes irritable.  This excites the teamster, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he will beat and punish the animal cruelly, expecting thereby to cure him of the trouble.  But, instead of pacifying the mule, he will only make him worse, which should,