110 HORSES AND ROADS. 



' Impecuniosus,' a thoroughly practical man, begs 

 us to observe that all horses will ' go short ' for a 

 day or two the first time that they wear tips. This 

 is because they feel strange on first having their 

 heels let out of a vice. 



It is well to go ' slow and sure ; ' therefore it 

 would be advisable for a man to experiment upon 

 one or two of his horses, say one with flat, weak, 

 tender, shelly, brittle hoofs, and the other with 

 what he considers as the stoutest in his stable. The 

 possibility is that he would find at the end of a 

 month that the weak-footed horse would apparently 

 have derived the most benefit from the treatment, 

 although theory might lead him to suppose that the 

 contrary would be the case. 



The tips should, of course, be applied cold. They 

 can be made whilst hot to the exact shape and size. 

 To facilitate and expedite this (and so to avoid 

 lifting up the foot and cooling the iron two or three 

 times), after the crust on the toe has been pared 

 and rasped into proper form, the outline can be 

 easily scratched with a fine, sharp nail, either on the 

 floor, if it should be smooth enough, or else on a 

 piece of board on which the horse is made to stand 

 whilst one of his fore-feet is held up by a groom. 

 When it is the outline of a hind foot that has to be 

 traced, the fore foot on the same side should be held 

 up, because the horse cannot so easily shift about the 

 foot that is being traced if he is obliged to bear his 

 weight on two legs on the same side to do so ; not 

 that there is much difficulty, or time required, in 



