THE FROG BEARING. l09 



his feet when the round shoes were on, and I expect he will 

 soon have perfectly sound feet. 



Mr. JoHNSOK of Framingham. Some eight or ten years 

 ago I bought a heavy pair of colts over in Newton. I had 

 been troubled with my horses' feet getting out of order ; and 

 I had attributed it to the blacksmith in a great degree, for 

 I scarcely found one who was willing to shoe a horse as I 

 wanted to have him. I was in the habit of taking those 

 colts to Waltham ; and Mr. Daniels shod those colts for me 

 for a long time, and he did first-rate with them. Before Mr. 

 Bowditch opened his shop, I had a small horse which was 

 shod at the same shop that Mr. Bowditch's horses were shod 

 at ; but that man, although he was a good shoer, did not 

 want to shoe my heavy horses. He showed me what Mr. Bow- 

 ditch calls the " Goodenough Shoe ; " and I assure you it is 

 good enough for anybody to use. I went to him to get a set 

 of shoes for my horses. But he had but one shoe, and he 

 said, " Mr. Bowditch is going to try those shoes : let him try 

 them first: he is able. I don't believe in this nonsense, 

 Johnson." I did not get the shoes until Mr. Bowditch 

 opened his shop, three years ago ; and my three horses have 

 been shod there ever since. The two horses I speak of 

 weigh about twenty-seven hundred pounds. One of them 

 particularly is a horse that goes in a carryall a great deal, 

 and travels over our hard, stony roads. The frog of his 

 foot is upon the ground all the time : it is full flush to-day 

 with the shoe. I have him shod with what is called a full 

 shoe, — no calk at the toe, and no rise at the heel, of course ; 

 but it comes down gradually. The small horse has a frog in 

 his foot that is as broad as my hand ; and you may take a 

 light hammer and thump it, and you will see no shrinking, 

 except from the nervousness of the horse. His feet to-day 

 are all there is of him, you might say, that is valuable ; but 

 they are worth a hundred dollars more than they were when 

 he first went to his shop. 



I am fully convinced that the proper method of shoeing 

 a horse is to shoe him so that the frog shall come on the 

 ground. A little too heavy shoe was put on the little horse 

 I have referred to, because the blacksmith was out of light 

 shoes of the right size, and he said he would go as well with 

 those shoes as he would with lighter ones ; but, in the course 



