134: ESSAY ON SHOKING HORSES 



order to " ascertain the hearings^'''' or ratlier to discover the uneven 

 parts which necessarily occur as the result of faulty paring. Now 

 I contend that a good workman, with proper tools at command, can 

 make an even surface ; hence, a good workman has no reasonable 

 excuse for the unnecessary application of red-hot shoes. In fact the 

 application of the same either shows that the smith is wedded to 

 the errors of our forefathers, or else is deficient in skill. Now, if 

 this be true, every honest smith who understands his business, should 

 try to dispense with hot shoeing, and consider the practice as one of 

 the barbarisms of the ancients, whose policy it was "never to forget 

 what they had learned, and never to learn anything new.'''' 



Some smiths, I am infoi*med, merely apply the heated shoe for the 

 purpose of carbonizing, and thus softening the sole and crust of the 

 hoof so that it can be easily pared. This, I think, is a very lame 

 excuse, for in most cases too much of the same is removed, and thus 

 the horse has " tender feet." 



If the above is true, then it appears that the intelligent and pro- 

 gressive smith of the present day has no rational excuse for the 

 application of heated shoes ; and he who acts according to the dic- 

 tates of reason and humanity, is sure to secure a good business, and 

 the thanks of an intelligent community will be his reward. 



In offering the above remarks on the practice and principles of 

 shoeing, I have no desire to scold or fiud fault with the honest smith, 



" Whose brow is often wet with honest sweat," 



for it is a well known fact that lameness in horses is often attributed 

 to faulty shoeing, when such is not the case. For example, a horse 

 has recently been shod and become suddenly lame ; this lameness 

 may be obscure, so that its owner cannot determine its location, and 

 he jumps at the conclusion that the lameness has its origin in faulty 

 shoeing, when the reverse is the case — the animal being lame in the 

 shoulder instead of the foot. 



QUARTEE-CEACK8. 



The best plan for shoeing horses with quarter-crack and toe-cracK, 

 is as follows : Before operating on the foot or applying the shoe, the 

 foot should be poulticed with linseed or slippery elm ; the poultice to 

 remain on the parts for a period of at least twelve hours. The object 

 in applying a poultice is to soften the hoof and abate any irritation 

 or lameness which may exist ; then by means of a crooked end of a 

 drawing knife, all extraneous matter is to be removed from the crack 

 or fissure ; a fine gimlet, corresponding to the size of the clinch 

 (which is a round shoe nail), is then to be sent through the hoof di- 

 rectly across the crack, taking care not to get too deep a hold, for 

 fear of wounding the sensitive tissues which lie in contact with the 

 inner part of the hoof; the nail or rivet is now to be sent through 

 the gimlet hole — across the crack — and by means of hammer and 

 pincers it must be well clinched ; then the projecting heads are to be 

 rasped off. The hoof is now to be cut through across the crack, 

 close up to the coronet, and thereby all communication between the 

 new growth and the fissure, or crack, is effectually cut of. 



When the crack is quite extensive it may be necessary to insert 



