THE FOOT. 415 



Will be seen that, though it is well calculated to stand an im- 

 mense amount of service, it is also susceptible of great and 

 oftentimes irreparable injury. If the owner of the horse would 

 consider that a horse without legs is worse than no horse at 

 all, and that good feet are quite indispensable to good legs-, 

 and that ears, eyes, and tail may be better dispensed with, he 

 will be likely to appreciate and take better care of his horse's 

 feet. • 



In a work intended for popular use, in which so great a num- 

 ber of subjects have to be considered, it can not be expected 

 that a minute consideration of every thing relating to the foot 

 can be given. This, of itself, has constituted the material for 

 a considerable book. The principal parts of the outside of the 

 foot are, the outside case, or hoof, composed of the wall or 

 crust, the sole, the bars, and the frog. The principal internal 

 parts of the foot are, the coffin-bone, the navicular or shuttle- 

 bone, the coronary substance, the sensitive sole, the sensitive 

 frog, and the lamellae, together with certain ligaments. Each 

 of these parts I shall now explain separately, first remarking, 

 however, that the different parts of the hoof are so firmly 

 united that they can not be separated or taken apart until the 

 hoof has been soaked in w^ater for a long time. It then sepa- 

 rates easily. 



The crust, or wall, of the hoof constitutes that part which can 

 be seen when the horse stands before us. It gives form to the 

 foot, and its lower border, to which the shoe is nailed, is the 

 principal part that comes in contact with the ground. It is 

 somewhat difficult to describe, but I shall endeavor to illustrate 

 its shape. If the bark is stripped off a stick, as a boy makes a 

 whistle, and this bark is cut slantingly across, as the boy cuts 

 it for the mouth of the whistle, and again cut across, commenc- 

 ing a little forAvard of the air-hole of the whistle exactly oppo- 

 site the beginning of the slope at the other or lower si^e, and 

 cutting it across not so slantingly as at first, but so as to come 

 out very near the lower side of the other cut. l^ow, set this 



