THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 19, 1995 TAG: 9505190518
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Mules are coming back!
Next to dogs, the animals I most enjoy contemplating are mules.
They're so sagacious. They've had a large role in the economy and culture of the South.
In Chesapeake, Bob Ferguson, who owns four mules, said: ``I work the garden with them; and show them. That's about the extent of it.''
You get the idea it's mainly the satisfaction of having mules around that motivates him.
``Anybody can have a horse; I like mules,'' he said.
And thanks in large part to Ferguson, eight teams, two mules to a team, will vie Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Chesapeake Jubilee. It's the first-ever mule-pulling there and the first of the season in Virginia.
Mules have a name for being stubborn. Fact is, they're more intelligent than horses as a rule.
``A horse will go where you direct him, but if a mule decides he distrusts something about the order, he's going to check it out,'' Ferguson said.
``If a mule gets hung up on a fence, he's not going to fight that fence; he's going to stand there until somebody gets him out of it.
``And mules are more economical. They don't eat as much, and they're more resistant to disease.''
Consider mules working at dragging logs upwards of 600 feet out of the woods to the skid pile.
``Once you show them where to go, they go on their own,'' he said. A mule these days sells for $800 to $1,000. Female mules are apt to be a little easier to handle.
Horses usually are bigger than mules. Ferguson has seen a team of horses pull 10,000 pounds. Big mules can pull 7,500 pounds of dead weight on a sled.
To get a large working mule, a jack donkey is bred to a draft mare horse. To breed a male horse with a mare donkey would produce what is called the hinny, valued now as a pack animal or for riding.
Mule sales now are much more numerous than they have been at any time in the past 20 years; many are bought for riding.
``They're easier to handle, more sure-footed, and don't spook as easily as horses,'' Ferguson said.
In Saturday's competition, the mules will respond to voice command, without being slapped by lines as would occur when they work in the fields.
Ferguson has two saddle mules, Lucy and Jake, pulling as lightweights, and two draft mules, Carolina and Virginia, pulling as heavyweights.
He calls the two heavies the Border Twins. He bought them in Ararat, a Virginia town near the North Carolina line.
Carolina does what is asked of her. Virginia sometimes likes to think about it - which pretty much reflects the attitudes of the states for which they are named.
With the mule population increasing, the Republic seems, somehow, safer. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
Robert Ferguson stands with two of his four mules. From left are
Virginia and Carolina, both draft mules.
by CNB