104 SYSTEM FOK TEATKING CAY ALKY HOUSES. 



have only to drive the nail straight and it will go 

 through the shoe, across the gi-ain of the crust, and 

 come out low do^vn in tlie thickest part of the hoof, 

 and give you a strong clinch made out of the shank 

 of the nail, instead of a weak one made out of the 

 point. The advantage of straight-holing is, that you 

 are sure never to prick the foot in driving a nail, and 

 you get a firmer hold for the shoe. 



The soundness of a horse's foot, so far as shoeing 

 is concerned, depends more upon the number of nails 

 and where they are placed, than upon any thing else ; 

 for if the shoe is ever so badly formed, and the nail- 

 holes rightly placed, very little harm will happen to 

 the foot beyond the loss of a shoe ; but if a shoe is 

 of the best possible shape and fitted to the foot in the 

 most perfect manner, unless the nail-holes are placed 

 so that the foot can expand, it must in the end be- 

 come unsound. 



The portions of the hoof that exj^and the most, are 

 the inner quarter and heel ; you must therefore leave 

 those parts free from nails ; and the way to do it is, 

 never to stamp more than two holes on the inside of 

 the shoe, one about an inch and a quarter from the 

 centre of the toe, and the other about three-qnarters 

 of an inch behind it. It is quite clear that if you 

 nail both sides of a horse's hoof to an iron shoe, tlie 

 hoof will be held fast and cannot expand ; and when 

 the horse's weight forces the bones of the foot into 

 the hoof, the tender lining of the hoof will be squeezed 



