FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 241 



the forefeet in a box of Avet clay wliile in the stable ; if the frost of winter 

 renders the clay inconvenient, the foot-bath may be used instead ; tlie feet 

 being kept in the cold water for half an hour each day. Such horses should 

 be allowed the freedom of the barn-yard, if possible, during the winter. 



Horse-shoeing as an art has been known and practiced since time immemo- 

 rial, and it is very probable that horse-slioes were invented soon after the sub- 

 jection of the horse to man's rule. The primary object of shoeing is to prevent 

 an undue wear of the hoofs while tiie horse is working, and in case of general 

 purpose shoes for the summer, this ought to be the only object. Bat the 

 horse-shoers of this country, following the example set them by their fellow 

 men in other arts, have sought to improve upon nature, and as a result 

 we have a system of shoeing against which untold numbers of horses 

 throughout our broad land, are silently but piteously protesting. But in 

 this age so prolific of reformers, and agitations, let us hope that the 

 sufferings of the equine race will soon receive their share of attention, and 

 that a speedy relief may follow. It is in the shoeing smith that we must 

 look for any reform in the direction of horse-shoeing; and in tlie first place 

 he must have ingenuity and intelligence, and secondly, be made acquainted 

 with the scientific principles which are the true foundation of his art. The 

 shoeing smith of to-day knows nothing of the structure of the organ with 

 which he has to deal, and rarely has any sympathy with the temperament or in- 

 telligence of the horse. The majority of the shoeing smiths with whom I have 

 become acquainted, do their work much as the galley slave treads his wheel, 

 without heed, and with the same pace ; each horse receives the same model of 

 shoe, the hoof is prepared in the same way for each horse, aiid when the shoe 

 is set the border of the wall of each foot receives the same amount of rasping. 

 Such I have found to be the case in the extensive rural district in Western 

 New York, with which I am acquainted, and I am sorry to say that Michigan 

 is not more fortunate in the same respect. In the district I have mentioned 

 there are at least one hundred shoeing forges, and if we could take one hun- 

 dred horses — none of them lame, but each requiring a particular shoe, and 

 different from the common form — and send one to each forge, with no direc- 

 tions as to the preparation of the foot, nor as to the form of shoe to be used, 

 I am sure that when the hundred horses were returned to us we should find 

 the whole number shod with shoes that might have been rolled over the same 

 dies, and they would be of the pattern known as the "seated shoe," and more 

 than that, we should find our hundred horses lame of the fore feet within a 

 week. This is a generalization of an accidental experiment of the past spring. 

 Having need of a sharply shod horse to use upon the icy roads of the season, I 

 took one of my horses from the stable and left her at the smith's as I was 

 passing. As she entered the forge soon after noon she showed no signs of 

 being lame, and had never shown any duiing the six months I had owned her; 

 but as I led her from the forge at five o'clock that afternoon I noticed that 

 she did not seem to be comfortable on her fore shoes, and on the way homo 

 she sliowed unmistakable signs of being lame. The following morning she 

 was worse and unfit for work. I at once removed the shoes and they, with the 

 form of the surface they had rested upon, afforded ample proof of what had 

 gone wrong. Seeing that I could not use her for work I turned her into the 

 straw yard, where she soon commenced to improve, and in a few weeks was as 

 well as before the shoeing. When I needed her again for work in the field I 

 took her to another smith, giving him full directions as to the form of shoes 

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