HOKSES SHOULD BE WELL SHOD 269 



accident you should omit the carrots, I doubt whether 

 they would eat the corn readily without them. 



I think you are perfectly in the right to mount 

 your people well : — there is no good economy in 

 giving them bad horses : they take no care of them, 

 but wear them out as soon as they can, that they may 

 have others. 



The question that you ask me about shoeing, I am 

 unable to answer : yet I am of opinion, that horses 

 should be shod with more or less iron, according as 

 the country wherein they hunt requires ; but in this a 

 good farrier will best direct you. Nothing, certainly, 

 is more necessary to a horse than to be well shod : — 

 the shoe should be a proper one, and it should fit his 

 foot. Farriers are but too apt to make the foot fit the 

 shoe. 1 My groom carries a false shoe, which just 

 serves to save a horse's hoof, when he loses a shoe, 

 till it can be put on again. In some countries you see 

 them loaded with saws, hatchets, &c. I am glad that 



1 I venture to give the following rules on shoeing, in a short and 

 decisive manner, as founded on the strictest anatomical and mechanical 

 principles laid down by the best masters : — The shoe should be flat, and 

 not turned up at the heel, or reach beyond that or the toe ; but the middle 

 part should extend rather beyond the outward edge of the hoof, that the 

 hoof may not be contracted ; the outward part of which may be pared, to 

 bring it down to an even surface, to fit it for the fixing on of the shoe. If 

 the foot be too long, the toe may be pared, or rasped down ; which, in 

 many cases, may even be necessary to preserve the proper shape of the 

 hoof, and bring the foot to a stroke and bearing the most natural and 

 advantageous. Neither the horny sole, or frog (meant by Nature for the 

 guard of the foot and safety of the horse), are upon any account to be 

 pared, or cut away. The small, loose, ragged parts that at times appear, 

 should be cut off with a pen-knife ; but that destructive instrument called 

 the outten's, which, in the hands of stubborn ignorance, has done more 

 injury to the feet of horses than all the chases of the world, should be 

 banished for ever. 



