kODERN BLACKSMITHING 17 



in their lofty aims, and benevolent acts. Sunday is 

 rest and strength to them. 



Brother smiths, six days a week are enough for work. 

 Keep the Sabbath and you will live longer and better. 



INCOMPETENCY 



Another reason the smith of to-day is not respected 

 is his incompetency. 



When a young man has worked a few months in a 

 shop, he will succeed in welding a toe calk on a horse- 

 shoe that sometimes will stay, and at once he begins 

 to think he knows it all. There will always be some 

 fool ready to flatter him, and the young man believes 

 that he is now competent to start on his own hook. 

 The result is, he hangs out his shingle, begins to prac- 

 tice horse-shoeing and general blacksmithing, and he 

 knows nothing about either. Let me state here that 

 horse-shoeing is a trade by itself, and so is black- 

 smithing. In the large cities there are blacksmiths 

 who know nothing about horse-shoeing, as well as 

 horse-shoers who know nothing about blacksmithing, 

 except welding on toe calks, and in many instances 

 even that is very poorly done. In small places it is 

 different. There the blacksmith is both blacksmith 

 and horse-shoer. Sometimes you will find a black- 

 smith that is a good horse-shoer, but you will never 

 find a horse-shoer that is a good blacksmith. This is 

 not generally understood. To many blacksmithing 



