134 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The conditions, it will be noticed, are very broad; embrace a great 

 deal — but being granted, will any one venture to affirm that such 

 soil is any where too distant from a manure market, or a muck hole, 

 or a bod of forest leaves, to be profitably improved by some of the 

 means before alluded to for renovation of exhausted lands, or any 

 location in Maine so far from a produce market, that horses, cattle, 

 or meat, or butter and cheese, (if good as they should be) or wool, 

 or timothy or clover seed, or some other product, will not pay to 

 carry to market? 



It will be seen, by referring to the report of the doings of the 

 Bo.ird at its last session, in January of the present year, as published 

 in the " Abstract of returns " from the agricultural societies in the 

 State, for 1856, that several committees (ten or eleven in all) were 

 appointed to investigate divers subjects connected with agricultural 

 pursuits, and report to the Secretary facts, experiments, views and con- 

 clusions, for publication in his annual report. Up to the time of the 

 present writing only two of these reports have been received, and it 

 is therefore with greater pleasure that I am able to add a commu- 

 nication from an eminent veterinary sui-geon, on the subject of 

 shoeing horses — a subject intimately connected with the usefulness 

 of this valuable animal.* If it be true, that a horse with useless 

 feet is of no worth, it follows that whatever may tend to correct 

 erroneous practice, and diffase a knowledge of the principles upon 

 which success in securing the full use of his feet can alone be 

 obtained, must be of widely extended, and indeed almost universal 

 benefit; for, although every person may not be an owner of horses, 

 few are not more or less dependent on their services. To shoe a 

 horse properly, involves, as will be seen below, a familiarity not 

 only with the mechanical art, but with the structure of the foot, the 

 laws of motion, and of the principles of mechanical science. 



Maine ranks deservedly high in the production of horses — we rear 

 many, use many, and sell many, and good ones, and we might profit- 

 ably rear, and use, and sell more and better. But, as a State, we 



* BesiJes our obligation to Mr. Cuming for his valuable letter, we are indebted 

 for the illustrations accompinyiag it, and whiiih aid much to its usefulness, to the 

 courtesy of the Directors of the St. John County Agricultural Society. 



