The Hen of the Baskervilles(24)

And speaking of those breeds, I decided it would be useful to print out a copy of a page I’d bookmarked—the American Livestock Breed Conservancy’s list of farm animals and poultry that were a conservation priority. I was tired of being confused when people talked about Sablepoots and Old Spots. And I’d already figured out that the more obscure the animal’s breed, the more annoyed its owner would be if you didn’t recognize it.

“So what’s so special about these heritage animals?” Rob was asking.

“Let me show you one,” Randall said.

He strode out the door and disappeared. Rob had to scramble to keep up. I grabbed my printout and followed along for the entertainment value. From the enthusiasm with which he extolled heritage livestock and heirloom seeds, you’d think Randall was a fifth- or sixth-generation farmer. And some of his family were farmers, but a lot more of them were carpenters, plumbers, electricians, mechanics—just about any skilled trade that would get them out from behind a plow. Randall as the champion of the old-fashioned farm was a new role that still amused me.

He led us to a small pen.

“This,” he said, “is an American Mammoth Jackstock donkey.”

Staring back at us was a large donkey. His coat was black on top, shaded to gray or white on his belly and the inside of his legs, and he had a white nose and pale rings around his eyes. His ears were so large they seemed incongruous, as if someone had stuck a pair of fake bunny ears on a horse. But they were definitely real. One of them swiveled ninety degrees to the right, apparently tracking a sound so faint none of us noticed, and then snapped back to attention facing us.

“I thought donkeys were little,” Rob said. “He’s the size of a small horse.”

“They were bred for size and strength,” Randall explained. “By George Washington and other early colonial farmers. You breed one of these donkeys to a saddle mare and you’ve got yourself a decent-sized riding mule. Breed him to a draft mare and you’ve got a big, strapping work mule.”

“But why go to all that trouble of breeding mules when you’ve already got horses and donkeys?” Rob asked. “Why not just use them? Plus with horses and donkeys you can always make more little horses and donkeys, but mules are kind of a dead end.”

“Mules get the best of both parents,” Randall said. “They’re more patient and surefooted than a horse, and can carry bigger loads. And they’re bigger and stronger than donkeys. And supposedly more intelligent than either horses or donkeys. No offense, Jim-Bob.”

He patted the donkey’s neck. Jim-Bob took a sideways step closer to Randall and lowered his head slightly, as if to suggest that he wouldn’t say no if someone offered to scratch behind his ears. Randall obliged, and Jim-Bob’s long face took on a dreamy look.

“And they eat less for their size than horses, which is another big selling point with a small farmer,” Randall went on. “A hundred and fifty years ago, your mule was like your tractor and your pickup, all rolled into one. By 1920, there were around five million mules in the U.S., and probably hundreds of thousands of these donkeys that the mule breeders used to produce them. And then along came Henry Ford and the model T.”

Jim-Bob pulled his head back. I wondered at first if he was objecting to Randall’s mentioning the man whose invention had led to the downfall of his breed. Then Jim-Bob stuck his head forward again at a slightly different angle, so Randall could reach the other ear.

“Poor old guy,” Rob said. “I guess with nobody using mules anymore, this guy’s out of a job.” He stepped forward and began scratching the ear Randall had abandoned. Jim-Bob closed his eyes and sighed with delight.

“Lots of people still use mules.”

We glanced around to see a woman with cropped gray hair, blue jeans, and a t-shirt with a picture of a mule and the words MULE PROJECT on it.

“Hey, Betsy,” Randall called.

“The Amish use mules.” Clearly this was Betsy’s favorite topic. “They may use horses for their buggies, but they plow and harvest with mules. And mules are popular for wilderness trekking. In fact, in parts of the world where you can’t take a car, people still use mules for daily transportation. The U.S. Army uses them in places like Afghanistan where the terrain’s too steep to drive or even land a helicopter.”

“Betsy’s one of the people trying to keep the American Jack Mule breed from dying out,” Randall added. “What happens if we discover a whole lot of new uses for mules, and can’t get top-quality ones?”

“She’s protecting the strategic mule reserve,” I said. “I like that.”