124 STABLE ECONOMY. 



almost impossible when the horse is shod and worked on 

 hard roads. He can not work in the pads, and it is not 

 meant that he should ; but perhaps he may receive some 

 benefit from them in the stable. They may be useful for 

 soles that have a tendency to become flat. Care must be 

 taken to have them of the proper size ; when too small, they 

 fall out and are lost ; when too thin, they do not support the 

 sole. It is only thin, flat soles that require any support. In 

 general they have little need for moisture : but the pad is 

 usually dipped in water before it is inserted. To a concave 

 foot these pads are useless, the soles have more need for 

 moisture than for support : and for them damp or wet tow 

 answers better than felt pads. Nimrod speaks of a groggy 

 mare in whom Cherry's pads increased the inflammation of 

 the feet and produced considerable suffering : he must have 

 been mistaken ; the pads have no such power. 



The Times of Stopping must vary according to the state of 

 the feet. All horses, those with thin flat soles excepted, 

 should be stopped on the night before the day of shoeing. 

 Except at these times, farm-horses seldom require any stop- 

 ping ; their feet receive sufficient moisture in the fields, or 

 t if they do not get much, they do not need much. Cart-horses 

 used in the town should be stopped every Saturday night till 

 Monday morning.- Fast-going horses have need to be stop- 

 ped once a week or oftener during winter, and every 

 second night in the hot weeks of summer. Groggy horses, 

 all those with high heels, concave soles, and all those with 

 hot tender feet, and an exuberance of horn, require stopping 

 almost every night. When neglected, especially in dry 

 weather, the sole becomes hard arid rigid, and the horse goes 

 lamer, or he becomes lame. 



Some Feet should not be Stopped. When the sole is flat 

 and thin, the less moisture it receives the better ; it makes 

 the sole yield too much ; under the pressure of the super- 

 incumbent weight it descends and often becomes convex, in- 

 stead of maintaining its original concavity. Stopping alone 

 will not bring the sole down, but it helps, when there is an 

 existing tendency to descend. Flat soles are almost in- 

 variably thin ; they can not suffer paring ; when softened, 

 they not only yield to the horse's weight, but they yield when 

 they come upon a stone. On a newly-metalled road, the 

 horse is lame, and his sole is easily cut through ; such soles 

 are always sufficiently elastic without the assistance of 

 moisture. 



