212 APPENDICES. 



APPENDIX B. 



Horse-Shoeing. 



SIR, I have read with the greatest interest the letters 

 of * Free Lance ' on Horse Management, and am inclined, 

 from my own observations in other countries where 

 horses and mules are not shod, to try the experiment, 

 and have no doubt many of my brother farmers would 

 like to do the same; but will 'Free Lance,' or other 

 equally good authority, tell us how to make a right 

 beginning 1 



My horses have, of course, all undergone the ' burn- 

 ing on' and 'laceration' consequent on this barbarous 

 custom, and farming operations are too backward to 

 admit of the apparently necessary ' rest ' being given to 

 allow the injuries to the hoof to ' grow out ' and harden. 



Our local farrier does not, and probably would not 

 care to, know much about the ' Charlier ' shoe, and could 

 throw every impediment in the way of a gradual change 

 being successful. 



All my horses have been bred on the farm, and, with 

 the exception of the sire and another, are young and 

 fresh ; they are in perfect health ; neither they nor their 

 predecessors, during the last quarter of a century, having 

 ever taken a drop of ' medicine,' or ' horse balls,' save the 

 leaden ones to cure them of * crippled ' old age. 



My carter thinks it might ' do ' on the land, but shows 

 a disposition to kick over the traces if the experiment 

 is tried on the road. However, I am prepared to face 

 ignorant prejudice by anointing the outraged feelings of 

 my man by giving him half the saving in the black- 

 smith's bill, which success will entail, to carry out the 

 instructions necessary to perfect the change. 



WILL WATCH. 



