THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



385 



me to arrive at the concluBions I have now set forth. 

 My desire is to avoid being inrtiienced by prejudice on 

 any subject, I shull therefore read with attention the 

 views of any gentlemen \v)io may choose to express 



themselves upon the subject, and whom you may be 

 pleased to favour with a place in the columns of your 

 valuable paper. Your obedient servant, 



W. A, 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A HORSE, 



It is true that Mr. Smith, of Woolstou, is gradually 

 getting rid of his cart-horses, and as certainly inocula- 

 ting his brethren with a mania ibr steam cultivation. 

 Mr. Fowler ay:ain declares lii^ share of the good work 

 done, and only cements a union witli Mr. Williams, of 

 Baydon, to render the process yet more perfect. We 

 are, in a word, to plough by steam as surely as wc 

 thrash or travel by it. Nevertheless the hoi-se is going 

 by no means out of fashion. Good grooms and able 

 vetci-inarians find places and practices as readily as 

 ever they did. There is, indeed, ju^t now a strong- 

 proof of the increasing value of horse-flesh to be seen 

 in the sights of London. A young American is taking 

 ten guineas a-piece from ibur or five hundred gentle- 

 men to teach them how to treat their horses properly 

 and rationally. He numbers, moreover, in his list, not 

 merely princes, lords, and cavalry officers. The agricul- 

 turists have even given in their adhesion to him, and 

 Allen Ransome, and liis neighbour Barthropp, are 

 going to school again — to learn how to deal with a clever 

 hack or a mighty Suffolk. 



But i( there were further proof wanting of how 

 much agi'iculture still respects the horse, we may go 

 direct to head-quarters for it. By far the most popular 

 paper in the last number of the Society's journal is 

 devoted to his interests. There has been no article so 

 much quoted, and none wo should think so much 

 studied for a long time, as Mr. ]\Iiles's Essay on Horse- 

 shoeing. It is, moreover, a very model of what such a 

 treatise in such a place should be. It is well known 

 that half the contributions to the Journal are never 

 read, simply because they are too long to read. The 

 facility with which many writers can cover an almost 

 unlimited number of pages is ever fatal to their suc- 

 cess. Mr. Miles then starts under favourable auspices. 

 The most occasional of readers will not tire of him, 

 and the most careless must learn something from what 

 he says. 



There has been no such difliculty as the horse's foot. 

 Our own tight boots and throbbing corns sink to nothing 

 in the comparison. Old Bowler, with a heart like a 

 lion, takes another tug at a dead stand, and goes glo- 

 riously away with his load -only pulling three of his 

 shoes off in the eflfbrt. The phaeton, wanted in a hurry 

 of ciiursc, to take the master to the train or the missis 

 to lea, is broui^ht round by a cripple — that has been 

 just pinched in shoeing. And wh'.n our friend does 

 manage to get his day with theliounds, he lands the 

 young horse in a new road to a warning cry of " You've 

 lost a fore-shoe!" Man meets with many a contrivance 

 to les!<en his own ills. He has better fitting, softer 

 leather, and more general attention. Hut what atten- 

 tion does he give to the fit of his horse ? Is there one in 

 a himdred who does more than curse the smith, and 

 change ono blunderer for another ? We may have a 

 fancy for a certain sort of bridle, or be particular as to 

 the sit of saddle, and give our own orders accordingly. 

 But the shoe is left all to tho mercy of the village Vul- 

 can ; probably because of its especial importance, and 

 the force of the truism " no foot no horse." 



Let ns start here. We have all in our day had to com- 

 plain of these blundering blacksmiths. Mr. Miles say? : 



" I am oftcu aaiiured, when tulkiug of Bhoeing, that it is quite 

 impoaaible to persuarJe country smitiis to listen for a moment 

 to nny new suggestion, or to adopt any new plan ; that they 

 are an cbstin-tte prej'idiced race, and nothing can induce Ihera 

 to reiinqiiish any of their old notions. I can only say, in reply, 

 that this does not at all accord with ray experience of them as 

 a class ; on the contrary,! have found them, for the most part, 

 to be hardworking, painstakifig men, evincing great interest 

 in their work, snrt anxious to do it as well as they could. I 

 do not mean to say that there are no exceptions, because I 

 kcowtherfi are ; but the exceptions do rot disprove the rule. 

 .... T have been sometioies surprised at the readiness with 

 which smiths have yielded their opinion to oie, as soon as they 

 found that I really knew what I was talking about, and that I 

 could not only give them directions, but show tliem exactly 

 how to carry them out in detail, and, if I had only possessed 

 the brawny arm which is necessary for such a purpose, that I 

 could have forced the shoe and fitted it to the foot. They all 

 feel that horseshoeing is open to improvement, and as a class 

 they are anxious for inform atioa that they can depend on, but 

 they are naturally 9cry shy of relinquishing plans which they 

 have been long accustomed to, for others which they do not 

 comprehend ; but any gentleman who will take the trouble to 

 acquaint himself with the principle and details of the plan 

 which I advocate, will very soon become a welcome visitor at 

 the forge,and whi'e he is improving the condition of i;i3 owu 

 hcrses' feet, he will find that he is indoctrinating the whole 

 district, to the great benefit of his neighbours." 



Of course a man must be pi-cpared to encounter some 

 prejudice and leaning to conventional usage. Look, 

 for instance, at the very first point in this delicate opera- 

 tion—the knowing way in which the shoe is at once 

 wrenched oft'; as bad a practice as well can be. The 

 finish, however, in Mr. Miles' eyes is a yet greater 

 offence : — 



"I shall, no doubt, astonish some persons when I assert that 

 nearly all the evils incident to horse-shoeing are attributable to 

 the affectation and dandyism of the smith, who is not contented 

 to follow a necessary and useful art, simple in its mechanical 

 parts, but calling for the exercise of some judgment in itsap- 

 plicatioii ; but he must import into it dangerous dillicnlties and 

 mischievc\is ornament ; for instance, l:e assumes that a deep 

 narrow fuller, with small nail-holes inclining inwards, and still 

 smaller opcniuss on the foot surface of the shoe, present a 

 neat, trim appearance, and show that he is master of his art ; 

 knowing fidl v.ell that nothing but long practice could enable 

 any one to navigate a uail safely through a channel beset by so 

 many dangers ; but he entirely overlooks the fact that the 

 power to do so has nothing to recommend it bnt the danger 

 and risk attending the performance. Again, he imagines th«t 

 a hosf carefully rasped all over imparts an air of finish to his 

 work, of which he feels proud, forgetting altogether that he has 

 removed a most important covering from the hoof, for which 

 no amount of ornamental finish can compensate." 



We shall not attempt to follow out the detail of Mr. 

 Miles' system, the advantages of which are, that his 

 horses arc never lame, rarely throw their shoes, while 

 their feet appear to last for ever. His golden rule, 

 however, is that the shoe must be made to fit the foot, 

 and not, ns is too often tho case, the foot cut out to 

 the shape of the shoe. Further, tJie shoe " nmst 

 he nailed to the hoof in .inch a mattiicr rrs 

 mill permit the foot to expand to the wcifjht 

 of the home; this latterc ondition will be best com- 

 plied with by placing three nails in the outer limb 

 of the shoe, and two in tho inner limb between the too 



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