554 THE HORSE. 
fact, that many thousands of horses are annually lamed by our present 
system, and therefore I should much like the system of shoeing with tips 
tried on a large scale. The question is, whether those horses who bring 
their heels down first would be able to bear the bruising of the frog which 
this action causes ; and if not, it would always be a doubtful point, which 
must be left to the discretion of the smith, whether every individual 
horse should be shod in one way or the other. Unless therefore tips 
could be used in a vast majority of cases, I do not expect much good 
from their introduction. 
THE ANATOMY OF THE FOOT has been described at page 448 e¢ seg. and 
it is therefore unnecessary to return to it again. It will, however, be 
desirable, in describing the proper mode of preparing the foot for the 
shoe, to recapitulate the several parts which the smith has to work upon. 
These are delineated in fig. 1, of the proper form and proportions. In 
effecting this, the old shoe (excepting of course unshod colts) must first 
be taken off, to do which the clenches must be raised with the tool 
called the buffer, loosening any nails which may appear tight by driving 
them back with the punch. ‘Then taking hold of one web of the shoe, 
raise it from its bed by lifting one side bodily and then the other, taking 
care not to draw it off completely on one side, or the crust will be broken. 
Next rasp the whole surface of the crust to a level, which will expose 
Tig. 1.—A sOUND FORE-FOOT PREPARED FOR THE SHOK. 
A. The heel of the crust. E. E. The angles between the heel and bars, 
B. The toe cut out to receive the clip. where corns appear. 
C. C. The quarters of the crust. F. F. The concave surface of the toe. 
D. D. The bars as they should be left with the G. G. The bulbous heels. 
full frog between them. H. The cleft. 
any stubs remaining, and if there are any they must be taken out. All 
this is a mere mechanical operation, requiring no thought; but now comes 
the important part of the smith’s work. He must decide how far he 
shall remove the horn which has grown since the last shoeing, and this 
