CAUSES OF HOT FEET. 103 



talking about the trouble he has had with his lame horse 

 makes me think of the way that I began to take an interest 

 in this matter of shoeing. I had the same trouble that he 

 had, — of horses with hot feet ; and I found that they could 

 not be shod so as to avoid getting that heat. A horse's foot 

 in a state of nature, when it is worn down properly, is wide 

 at the heel, and the toes are worn down ; the bars are in 

 a perfect condition ; and it has a wide, elastic frog, which 

 takes all the jar from the foot. The cause of heat in 

 a horse's foot is, no doubt, the jarring of the laminae of the 

 foot. The outside of a horse's foot, as we all know, when 

 it is hot, is very sensitive and very tender, and causes the 

 horse acute pain. You very often see a horse that is afraid 

 to put his foot down, it hurts him so. Why does it hurt 

 him ? Why has his foot got into that condition ? It is 

 because, in shoeing, the frog, which Nature meant to take 

 the jar of the foot, has not been allowed to come on the 

 ground, and it becomes a dried and shrivelled-up little thing, 

 of no use at all. And, when it shrivels, the heel contracts, 

 and, as the heel contracts, it pinches on the small bone of the 

 foot, called the " coffin " bone. It presses on that, and gets 

 up an inflammation ; and, when the laminse get inflamed, very 

 often it produces pus ; and we all know how painful it is when 

 we have a felon, or any thing like that, on our finger, par- 

 ticularly when there is no escape for it. You cannot get at 

 the pus in the laminae of a horse's foot ; and there is no way 

 to relieve that, except by giving him a long rest, and shoeing 

 him properly ; that is, putting on as little iron as possible. 

 Let it cover the toe of the foot, and let the frog come down, 

 so that it will take the jar of the horse's foot, and, in ninety- 

 nine cases out of a hundred, the foot will get well. One 

 gentleman speaks of the great weight that comes upon the 

 foot of a horse when he is trotted down hill. I cannot 

 say that I agree with him there, because I am afraid that 

 I drive very hard down hill. I am in the habit of driving 

 '' cripples." My friends have a good deal to say about the 

 " corpses " that I drive ; but I take care of their feet, and 

 take care of their frogs; and they generally manage to 

 do good work. I make my best time in driving down 

 hill. The horse has nothing to pull, and only needs to 

 go. I have no fear of hard roads, and no fear of pavements, 



