On tiie General TrtalniefU of the Feel. 175 



For, it is an indisputable fact, that the hardness and inequality, 

 alone, of the surface upon which Horses labour, (except in those in- 

 stances where they perform tlie slow motion of walking" only,) will in 

 a few years, and in some instances in a few months, have a great 

 effect, in producing- disease, and derangement of the Feet. A fact, 

 which seems to me, to be not generally understood, or at least pretty 

 nearly overlooked. But, it is a fact, at the same time, when looked 

 at on the large scale, and in another point of view, which deajers Im. 

 Horses know how to profit by, for, it is by no means uncommon for 

 them, to buy up such Horses as have become nearly foundered, in 

 some of the rocky and stony districts of England, and send thera 

 into the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, where they are 

 frequently found to last some years longer. Now, though Mr. Clark 

 has most satisfactorily proved, that contraction does not take place in 

 the stable, so long as the Feet remain without shoes ; it is, never- 

 theless, I think, hardly safe to infer, that the practice of shoeing k 

 the sole cause of all the mischief, which takes place in the Feet of 

 Horses. At the same time I am ready to admit, that the new con- 

 dition in which the organ is put, in consequence of the single cir- 

 cumstance of nailing iron almost round the hoof, not only places it, 

 in the inevitable predicament of undergoing great alteration in it^ 

 internal structure and mechanism, but, at the same time, renders it 

 more obnoxious to other causes of mischief, which, but for the practice 

 of Shoeing, would operate but in a small degree, to its disadvantage. 

 Indeed, Mr. Clark has not denied that contraction may be increased 

 and exasperated, by the inflammatory agents of the stable, which I 

 am decidedly of opinion are constantly operating in a much greater 

 degree, to the disadvantage of the Feet, than this author ^eecfts inclin^ 



Xx 



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