126 The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



its drawbacks ; it is a shoe that cannot be adapted to 

 every class of foot, and above all other class of shoe 

 requires great skill, care, and patience to fit and put on 

 with success. No smith, however skilful he may be at 

 the foro^e, can succeed with the " Charlier " shoe unless 

 he has a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the 

 structure of the horse's foot. The foot itself requires 

 much time before it becomes again naturalised after it 

 has been under a course of barbarous shoeing with the 

 cutting, paring, and rasping so often practised in the 

 shoeing-shop ; and before the horse can be safely shod 

 with the " Charlier " the feet must be allowed time 

 to grow, and the sole and frog must on no account 

 be touched with the knife, the principle of the "Charlier" 

 shoe being to insert a narrow rim of iron round the wall 

 of the foot to prevent its breaking away, and leave all 

 the remainder of the foot as God formed it. If the 

 unshod colt is shod in this way from the first it can 

 do any kind of work over the roughest roads with 

 ease and safety, and the writer is of opinion that that 

 is the right time to begin with the " Charlier " shoe. 

 As it is with the faults of shoes and shoeing I am 

 dealing, I may here state that the two objections I 

 have found to the " Charlier " shoes is the difficulty 

 of getting them shod properly, and the fact that they 

 require a long time before the horse's feet become 

 naturalised. Another fault I have found in hunting 

 with them is that the horse cannot grip a bank. The 

 Toe Tip in many respects is like the " Charlier " shoe, 

 and is a plate of iron about five inches long and 

 three-quarters of an inch wide, and has generally a 



