104 The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



inclose in it a portion of this extravasated blood. 

 Another, and the most common cause of corns, is 

 allowing the shoes to remain too long on the horse's 

 feet ; nothing is more injurious than to allow a shoe 

 to remain too long on the foot, yet many owners of 

 horses, to save a few shillings per year, will let the 

 shoes remain on the horse for six weeks and two 

 months at a stretch, at the risk of producing corns, 

 and spraining the back sinews by an extra amount of 

 leverage caused by the lengthened growth of the toe. 

 The shoe remaining on too long is sure to become 

 embedded in the heel of the foot, consequently the 

 hoof grows down on the outside of the shoe and the 

 bearing is thus thrown on to the angular portion of 

 the sole. Continual pressure on the sole is sure to 

 induce inflammation and corns, the shoe being on a 

 loner time sets loosened at the heels, which admits of 



O ft ' 



gravel between it and the crust, which having accumu- 

 lated at the angles naturally insinuates itself into 

 the heels and produces a sore. As I said before, 

 nothing can be more injudicious than to allow the shoes 

 to remain too long on ; even if they are not worn out 

 they should be taken off every twenty-one days and 

 re-adjusted to free the feet from long continued 

 pressure. In shoeing, too, tlie blacksmith will often 

 resort to that injurious and ridiculous cutting and 

 shaping of the foot, and cutting away the bars. This 

 renders it necessary that the shoe should be levelled 

 inward, so as to accommodate it to their senseless 

 cutting and shaping of the foot; consequently an 

 unnatural disposition to contraction is induced by this 



