552 AET OF SHOEING. 



The French, in forging their shoe, leave the inner margin 

 of the web of their fore shoe (as all people do the hind) as 

 thick as the outer, instead of, like us, working the iron so as 

 to form a thick outer edge, and then to bevel out the inside, 

 making what goes by the name of the seated shoe; our 

 neighbours use a stamp which has a four-sided obtuse point, 

 which forms a perfect countersink, into which the head of 

 their nail fits ; the latter being made in a steel dye, exactly 

 corresponding with the nail-hole in the shoe. The French 

 method has advantages which favourably contrast with our 

 custom, inasmuch as the nails can be more accurately ap- 

 plied, from the broad form of the countersink, they have 

 the stronger hold, and less thickness in the web of the 

 shoe is required, and must necessarily be given, by which, 

 and the difference in working the iron of almost uniform 

 thickness, more protection is afforded to the foot, with less 

 weight of iron in the shoe, by from one quarter to a third, than 

 the English shoer uses, and yet, from the mode of adapting the 

 shoe to the foot, the wear is so equal all over, that the 

 lighter shoe will last fully as long as the heavier. 



In the process, the first essential difference consists in that 

 of the form of nails used. 



We shall not now discuss fully the relative merits of 

 French and English shoes, the object being here to show 

 how incompatible it is to mix systems and adopt parts, or, 

 as some will have it, improve on a plan by imitating an inci- 

 dental part only. 



The comparison between different modes of shoeing will 

 avail more if we go into the description of our own methods, 

 and then refer to the continental systems again. 



It is our opinion that the art of shoeing as first adopted 

 in England was of native birth, and not imported; not mean- 

 ing by this, the origin of shoeing, but that mode of doing the 



