158 MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 



That moisture and keeping the feet cool are the most 

 certain means of preventing contraction, we need only refer 

 to the farmer's horses, which arc so seldom, comparatively 

 speaking, liable to contraction. It is a very common prac- 

 tice for farmers to turn out their animals after their daily 

 labour. Being thus daily exposed to moisture, they are so 

 much the less liable to hardness and contraction of the hoofs. 



Nothing can be more injudicious than to remove the bars, 

 as they are a grand protection against contraction, their 

 use being principally to prevent luiring in, so that cutting 

 them away is certain to facilitate and greatly increase the 

 contraction after it has begun ; but we must not have it 

 supposed that the removal of the bars of themselves would 

 produce this tendency. 



It has been said that thmshes are often tlie cause of 

 contraction, but they are more frequently, if not altogether, 

 the consequence rather than the cause. 



Many persons are disposed to have an undue objection to 

 contraction, and at once reject a horse that exhibits the 

 slightest degree of lulring in of the quarters. There can 

 be little doubt but this is a malformation of the hoof ; ])ut 

 one thing is certain, that its growth is very slow, the altered 

 form extremely gradual, and the parts are progressively 

 accommodated to the change of form. As the hoof con- 

 tracts, the under parts, and especially the coffin-bone and 

 heels of the coffin-bone, diminish in size. HoAvcver, this 

 may be considered a mere change of form rather than 

 of capacity ; for as the foot narrows, it acquires additional 

 length, in consequence of the elongation of the coffin-bone, 

 and accommodates itself as completely to the coffin or box 

 as in its original condition ; and its small leaf-like margins 

 are as firmly connected with the crust as before the change, 

 which, in a great, measure, compensates for its limited 



