FAEMEKS' INSTITUTES. 243 



I ask. " Don't yon see he is a little flat before, and if we didn' t do that he would 

 golame." "Indeed! I see now, but are all of your horses flat before?" Buttlie 

 other shoe is at the right heat again, and the light from the white iron and 

 glittering sparks is all I get. After questioning for a long time the utility and 

 reason of this form of shoe, and the rather painful experience I have already 

 mentioned, I sat about finding something that would better meet my ideal of 

 an instrument for preventing an undue wear of the horse's hoof during the 

 summer. I had noticed that the rolled shoes used for the hind feet were much 

 narrower than those used for tlie fore feet. Taking one of these narrow shoes 

 in hand I said to the smith, "Patrick, I wish you would shoe my horse with a 

 set of these shoes without calkins, and make the shoe flat, and rasp the hoof 

 down flat to match the shoe." It was now Patrick's turn to be puzzled, at 

 least in appearance. "Don't you want a piece on the toe?" said he. "No, no 

 toe pieces; you can draw out the heels a little to make the shoe level." 

 " Won't she slip?" "I don't know ; we will see." Well, Patrick did as I had 

 told him, and much to his surprise, or disappointment, she did not slip, and 

 from one set of this kind I went to five, and to Patrick's astonishment 

 none of the horses slipped during the summer, though they often had wet 

 clay hills to climb and descend, and they drew heavy loads onto smooth barn 

 floors with all the ease they could have done had they been shod with calked 

 shoes. 



The plain, flat shoe as I have described it, has many advantages over the 

 seated shoe, as we may readily see by comparing them. The seated shoe, as 

 commonly made and set, affords a bearing surface for the wall of the foot 

 only, and in a great many cases only the outer edge of the wall rests upon the 

 shoe. If we examine a freshly pared hoof, we will find on the inferior face 

 alight-colored line extending round the foot, parallel with the edge; this is 

 called the white line, and it is here that the wall is united with sole. Now, if 

 ■we should carefully watch a smith in setting a seated shoe, we would find that 

 the white line is directly above the line that separates the seat from the beveled 

 portion of the shoe, and often inside of it ; by this means the horse is left to 

 rest upon the walls of his feet, as the long blunt caulkins raise him too far 

 from the ground to allow the frog to bear upon it, and thereby assist in dis- 

 tributing his weight. In such cases it is plainly to be seen that if the horse 

 does not ball out of the walls of his hoofs it is not the fault of the shoes, nor 

 of the man who set it, and in cases of horses having thin walled hoofs, we 

 very soon have evidence of the mischief that is being done. 



The seated shoe belongs properly to the class of surgical shoes, and never 

 should be used as a general purpose shoe. The plain shoe, when properly fin- 

 ished, exhibits a perfectly flat and even surface for the hoof to rest upon, and 

 n receives nearly equal portions of the wall and sole. It is by no means an 

 easy task to induce many smiths to make this flat and even surface. The 

 flattening must be done witliout increasing the width of the shoe; and this 

 can be affected best by commencing the process, at the toe of the shoe and 

 working backwards towards the heels. The shoe must be the same thickness 

 from toe to heel, and, if tiie sole of the foot is properly prepared by this 

 means, the natural angle of the foot and pastern is maintained, and the danger 

 from stumbling while the horse is traveling over uneven ground is much 

 reduced. The foot is brougiit much nearer the ground, and if the frog, the 

 organ of touch, of the foot when shod is left unmutilated by the knife, the 

 hor.-e is able to feel his way in traveling, and is much less liable to accidents 

 and injuries. I have many times heard people say that their horses had been 



