66 HORSES AND ROADS. 



as he could hold it in his hand ; ' this is virtually a 

 cold shoe. He did not believe in calks, or paring 

 the horn, but he let in his tips a la Charlier ; and, 

 finding that he could not get farriers to shoe as he 

 wanted, he started his own forge, on his own farm, 

 as he says 'for his own protection.' He goes on to 

 say : ' When the mare I drive came to me she had a 

 frog the size of my little finger; now it fills up 

 almost the whole of her foot. Nine hundred and 

 ninety-nine thousandths of all the trouble in horses' 

 feet come from shoeing: in fact, practically all. 

 Even in the case of heavy draught horses, put on 

 as little iron as you can get on : never a heel or a 

 toe calk. I have some heavy horses, and they go 

 with seven or eight ounces on their feet. The whole 

 secret is, if you have a horse whose feet have been 

 abused for a series of years, all that is required is a 

 little piece of iron at the toe. I am afraid I drive 

 very hard down hill. I am in the habit of driving 

 cripples ; my friends have a good deal to say about 

 the corpses that I drive ; but I take care of their 

 feet, and they manage to do good work. I make my 

 best time in driving down hill. I have no fear of 

 hard roads, and no fear of pavements, if a horse's 

 foot is kept in proper condition. Last winter I rode 

 my saddle mare (and, of course, my neck is more to 

 me than anything else I own) on glare ice, with a 

 small bit of iron' inlaid, as before explained 

 4 four inches long, curled around her toe, and with a 

 very small toe calk. I galloped out on the ice 

 where the men were cutting the ice, and I had no 



