428 



THE HORSE. 



use up the lower part of the crust too fast for its growth If the 

 human finger-nail be pierced with a fine needle in the manner of 

 a horse-shoe nail driven through the crust of a hoof, it will be ob- 

 served that the hole will remain, until the growth of the nail has 

 carried it beyond the flesh ; that is, the fibres of horn once sepa- 

 rated will never unite. Horses used for heavy work are shod with 

 heavy shoes, thick toe and quarter clips, high calks and steel toes, 

 and either because of the severe strain on the stones, the weight of 

 the shoes and nails, the leverage of calks and toes, waste of crust to 

 accommodate clips, or of all combined, they require shoeing about 

 once in three weeks, and frequently oftener. At each shoeing, a 

 little more crust and sole is taken off of the ground surface, a few 

 more holes made (or nails driven into old ones, enlarging the aper- 

 ture by working about and bending under the clenching iron). 

 The surface of the crust is again rasped, diminishing the thick- 

 ness, new furrows made to accommodate the clenches, and the horn 

 burned and softened by a hot shoe each time. The blacksmith 

 will insist that all these operations are necessary, but the fact is, 

 he is using up material too fast, and we leave it to horse owners 

 to judge by experiment, how these operations may be modified. 

 The French method of bringing the points of the nails out low 

 down on the surface of the hoof, appears rational, as it destroys 

 the vitality of the crust to a less degree than our custom, and 

 leaves a greater proportion of sound foot to bear the shocks. 



Our practice has been, after removing the old shoes (with care 

 not to enlarge the old holes by dragging crooked nails through 

 them), to pare off the crust and bars well down to the outer edge 

 of the sole, without taking a shaving from the sole, frog, or inside 



of the bars. If the crust has 

 not been broken by wear, 

 this leaves the foot as near 

 its natural shape as possi- 

 ble, and a shoe must be 

 made to fit it. For road- 

 sters, a narrow, light shoe 

 is fitted to the crust in 

 length and width, then 

 made perfectly level, with- 

 out twist or pritchell burs 

 at the nail holes, and while 

 sufficiently hot, slightly 

 touched to the crust, to mark any inequalities that may have been 

 left after paring. Six nails are used, three on each side, dividing 

 the space from about an inch from the centre of the toe, to the 

 centre of the quarters. The nail holes are set well back from the 

 outside edge, and made straight through the iron ; the nails are 



