HORSES AND THEIR FEET. 479 



the hoof, it is the probable, if not evident, cause of many affections of 

 the foot and leg, which impair the usefulness and must affect the com- 

 fort of the animal." If we add that the hunter is benefited almost 

 more than other horses by being allowed to use his feet as Nature 

 made them, the admission is made in the interests of the horse and 

 not as an expression of opinion on the controversy respecting the 

 right or the wrong of fox-hunting. It is enough to say that for horses 

 which have to move rapidly, and to come down with a sudden shock 

 on sticky and slippery ground, the natural course of the process of 

 expansion and contraction is of the first importance. For those who 

 may care nothing for the gratification of hunting-men, it may be amus- 

 ing or provoking to learn that, in times of hard frost, hunters have 

 been enabled to chase the prey by the aid of gutta-percha soles fast- 

 ened to the feet ; but all who are anxious only for the welfare of the 

 horse will see in this fact strong evidence of the uselessness of the iron 

 shoe. The plain truth is, that differences in the quality of soil, be it 

 hard or soft, stony or sandy, smooth and slippery, are of comparatively 

 little importance to the horse whose feet are as Nature made them. In 

 the words of " Free Lance," " the unshod horse can successfully deal 

 with all roads " ; and assuredly no one will dream of asserting that 

 shod horses can do this, for on the setting in of frost, for instance, they 

 can not be worked until certain ceremonies have been gone through at 

 the blacksmith's forge. The unshod horse can tread firmly on the 

 slime of wood pavement when shod horses are slipping and struggling 

 in agony around them ; he can gallop on ice, and trot for miles to- 

 gether on the hardest and I'oughest flint roads, with far more ease and 

 comfort than horses whose feet are shod with iron, or even with gutta- 

 percha. " Free Lance " rightly remarks that " if they could not there 

 would be an end of the thing, for evidently the horse should be able 

 to go anywhere and everywhere, and at a moment's notice." It seems 

 hard to produce the conviction that the natural sole of the horse's foot 

 is almost impenetrable, that it is so hard and strong as to protect the 

 sensible sole from all harm, and that all feet exposed to hard objects 

 are made harder by the contact, provided only that the sole is never 

 pared. This adequacy of the horse's foot to all demands that may be 

 made upon it is forcibly illustrated by Mr. Bracy Clark, who, like Mr. 

 Douglas and Mr. Mayhew, contented himself with striving to produce 

 a perfect shoe, although he acknowledged that, if we wish to appreciate 

 the full beauty of its structure, " we must dismiss from our views the 

 miserable, coerced, shod foot entirely, and consider the animal in a 

 pure state of nature using his foot without any defense. Probably 

 Mr. Clark thought that, though we may consider it in its natural 

 state, few can ever so behold it, as all horses in civilized countries are 

 in greater or less degree brought under artificial conditions. The plea 

 is fallacious. The horse is clearly intended by nature to serve as a 

 domesticated animal ; and, so long as we do not interfere with the 



