Horseshoeing. 295 



same time called his attention to the way in which his shoes 

 were made and put on. His reply was, "I never saw a horse 

 shod like this ; it will never do for this country ; no wonder he 

 cast his shoe : but I'll put one on my way, and I warrant he won't 

 throw that." Accordingly the shoe was put on, nailed inside and 

 out with eight nails, and two or three days afterwards the pony 

 Avent to plough again in some stiffish clay for an hour or two, 

 and when his work was finished it was found that he had left his 

 new shoe behind him somewhere in the clay, but the other shoe, 

 with four nails in it, was safe on his foot. 



The fact is, that a larger number than five nails are never 

 required excepting for the purpose of counteracting defective 

 fitting, and in this case the fitting was clearly so bad that even 

 eight nails could not hold it, although placed in the small shoe of 

 a pony. I may mention here that a few days ago my groom 

 picked up a shoe in the road with nine nails sticking in it, and I 

 was struck with his observation on finding it. He said, " if this 

 had been one of our shoes, Sir, with only three nails in it, there 

 would have been a pretty talk about it ; but as there are nine^ no 

 one will say anything about it : " and 1 have no doubt of the cor- 

 rectness of his conclusion, for human nature is prone to be very 

 tender over the misfortunes of long cherished prejudices, but 

 merciless in its visitations on the failure of any attempt to correct 

 them. 



The hind foot is differently formed from the fore foot, and 

 requires to be differently shod ; nevertlieless, the same principle 

 of fitting the shoe to the foot, whatever its shape may be, bringing 

 in the heels close to the frog and placing the nail-lioles so as to 

 permit the inner quarter and heel to expand, applies with equal 

 force to the hind as it does to the fore shoes. One of the great 

 mistakes smiths fall into in shoeing hind feet is squaring the toe, 

 and placing a clip on each side of it, with a view, as they say, of 

 preventing the horse striking the toe of his hind shoe against the 

 heel of his fore shoe, and producing the disagreeable sound, called 

 " forging ; " but as a horse never does forge with his toe, the plan 

 of squaring it and the reason assigned for it equally fail in their 

 object, and, like many other fallacies connected with the art of 

 horse-shoeing, produce the very results they were intended to ob- 

 viate. 



A horse forges by striking the outer rim of each side of the 

 hind shoe, just where it turns backward, against the iaiier rim of the 

 fore shoe, just behind the quarters ; therefore the broader the toe 

 of the hind shoe is made by the squaring and the clips, the more 

 likely the horse is to strike it against the fore shoe. It happens 

 in this way : the horse fails to carry his fore foot forward quickly 



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