TREATISE ON HORSESHOEING.- 437 



reason would exist for condemning the common 

 practice of using too many nails, but it is far 

 otherwise ; the nails, aside from confining the 

 natural expansion of the hoof, separate the 

 fibres of the horn, which never, by any chance, 

 become united again, but continue apart and 

 unclosed, until, by degrees, they grow down with 

 the rest of the hoof, and are finally, after repeated 

 shoeing, removed by the knife. 



As these holes cannot possibly grow down 

 and be removed under three shoeings, it will be 

 found, even with a small number of nails, that 

 three times that number of holes must exist in 

 the hoof all the while ; and as they are often, 

 from various causes, extended into each other, 

 they necessarily keep it in a brittle, unhealthy 

 state, and materially interfere with the future 

 nail-hold. As the position of the hind-foot, and 

 the nature of its office, render it less liable to 

 injury than the fore-foot, consequently, it less 

 frequently lames ; however, disease of the nav- 

 icular bone of this foot is by no means impos- 

 sible. The same care should be taken as with 



