Front Cover: A three-mule plow team in a West Texas cotton field. Photograph courtesy of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas.
The mule was the dominant domesticated animal in the United States for over a century, the primary beast of burden for the rural South, where it played a central role in the cotton culture. Because of the mule's ability to withstand heat, get by on poor fodder, and carry heavy loads over rough terrain, it has had an important role not only in agriculture but also in the nation's early livestock economy, in the transport of freight, in stagecoach travel, and in the United States Army, where the mule hauled the military supplies and equipment necessary to defeat the Apache and southwestern Indians. The mule is also an interesting animal in its unique genetic makeup. A hybrid of the equine species, it belongs to a larger group of such hybrids that includes the hinny, the jenny, and the molly. For more on the mule, from its chromosomal specifics to its nature to its role in history, see Watson C. Arnold's article, The Mule: The Worker that 'Can't Get No Respect'," which begins on page 35 of this issue.