Horseshoeing. '211 



taken by others, and will send their horses to the man who can 

 shoe them best, and that causes the other smiths to look about 

 them and change their plans. 



A few years ago I rented a house for the summer near to a 

 country village, and was very soon waited on by the smith with 

 specimens of his shoes, and a foot shod in his very best man- 

 ner ; and as examples of careful finish they were very pretty 

 things to look at ; but when I descended from the ornamental 

 to the useful, and began to point out the defects one after 

 the other, he looked astonished, and not very well pleased ; he 

 was, however, somewhat consoled by my telling him that I 

 would have one of my horses brought to his forge on the fol- 

 lowing morning, and then I would show him what I meant. I 

 kept my word, and finding that he entered with interest into 

 my views, and tried his best to understand and carry them out, I 

 took some trouble with him, and frequently looked in and directed 

 him at his work. One day I found him turning store-shoes of 

 a better form than any I had yet seen in his forge, and observing 

 to him that they were more like what I meant, he said, "Oh yes, 

 I have got it now, Sir ; my shoes were all too short to fit as they 

 ought to do ;" and pointing to some that were hanging against 

 the wall, he added, " before you came here I used to feel very 

 proud of those shoes, but now it makes me ill to look at them, 

 and I don't think I could ever make one like them .again." He 

 had become a really good shoer, and understood how to fit a 

 shoe properly, and I think he would have found it a difficult job 

 to fall back on his old pattern again. His fame soon spread, 

 and he obtained the shoeing of all the gentlemen's horses 

 for several miles around him. Similar results have followed 

 in other instances where I have bestowed a little trouble, and 

 I must say that I have invariably received civility and attention 

 at the time and on many occasions expressions of great gratitude 

 afterwards. 



Many persons have been deterred from interfering with the 

 smith, because, as they have told me, they knew nothing what- 

 ever about the anatomy or physiology of the horse's foot, and had 

 neither the time nor the inclination to study it ; but such know- 

 ledge is not at all necessary to a thorough acquaintance with the 

 principle and practice of horseshoeing ; if it were, they might 

 well be excused for not attempting it : all that is really required 

 of them is to take one anatomical and one physiological fact on 

 trust, and believe that the horse's hoof is lined by a very sensi- 

 tive membrane, which must on no account ever be wounded, and 

 that the hoof itself is elastic, and expands when the weight of 

 the horse is thrown on the foot, and contracts when it is taken off 

 again ; all the rest is purely mechanical and merely calls for the 



VOL. XVIII. LT 



