126 HOW TO EDUCATE HORSES. 



dead by filing with the blacksmith's file. This will 

 not embarrass the ordinary blacksmith, however, 

 who will put on the shoe the same as if it were all 

 right, and then scientifically sand-paper the whole 

 job. This last part he has probably got down fine, 

 and to the uninformed horse-owner, who looks only 

 for effect, the job will be considered as all right. 



As I find very few people who seem to know the func- 

 tions of the horse's frog, it will not, perhaps, be out of 

 place if I explain them, and to that end I would say 

 that the frog in a horse's foot is a cushion to the 

 horse, and takes the same place as a spring in a 

 wagon. If we take the spring out of a carriage and 

 attempt to ride over five or ten miles of rough and 

 stony roads, we soon find that our nerves are being 

 terribly jolted, so that we lose the pleasure which 

 generally accompanies a drive. Now, when the 

 Almighty made the horse, He gave him the frog to 

 act as a cushion to his feet. The frog is of an elastic, 

 yielding character; and when it comes in contact with 

 the earth, stones, or anything hard, it yields and gives 

 like a spring, taking the jar off from the delicate 

 machinery of the foot. As its convexity must make it 

 liable to touch the ground at every step, I conclude 

 that it was intended to receive pressure; paring the 

 frog, therefore, and raising it from the ground by a 

 high-heeled shoe annihilates its functions and pro- 

 duces disease. 



When a horse has travelled upon these high-heeled 

 shoes for a long time, taking the pressure off the frog, 

 the frog becomes dry and hard as a stone, and the 

 result is, when it strikes the earth it jars the limbs and 

 causes inflammation. Then the foot commences to 

 contract, growing worse and worse every day, until 

 in a few months the horse is almost worthless.' 



