316 THE HORSE. 



CALKINS. 



It is expedient not only that the foot and ground surface of tlie slioe 

 should be most accurately level, but that the crust should bi; exactly 

 smoothed and fitted to the shoe. Much skill and time are necessary to do 

 tliis perfectly with the drawing- knife. The smith has ax'opted a method of 

 more quickly and more accurately adapting the shoe to the foot. He pares 

 the crust as level as he can, and then he takes the shoe, at a heat some- 

 thing below a red heat, and applies it to the foot, and detects any little 

 elevations by the deeper colour of the burned horn. This practice has beer 

 much inveighed against; but it is the abuse and not the use of the thing 

 which is to be condemned. If the shoe be not too liot, nor held too long on 

 the foot, an accuracy of adjustment is thus obtained, which the knife would 

 be long in producing, or would not produce at all. If, however, the shoe 

 is made to burn its way to its seat with little or no previous preparation of 

 the foot, the heat must be injurious both to the sensible and insensible parts 

 of the foot. 



The heels of the shoe should be examined as to their proper width. 

 Whatever be the custom of shoeing the horses of dealers, and the too prev- 

 alent practice, in the metropolis, of giving the foot an open appearance, 

 although the back part of it is ti)ereby exposed to injury, nothing is more 

 certain than that, in tlie horse for work, the heels, and particularly the seat 

 of corn, can scarcely be too well covered. Part of the shoe projecting 

 outward can be of no possible good, but rather an occasional source of 

 miscliief, and especially in a heavy country. A shoe, the web of which 

 projects inward as far as it can, without touching the frog, affords protec- 

 tion to the angle between the bars and the crust. 



Of the manner of attaching the shoe to the foot the owner can scarcely 

 be a competent judge; he can only take care that the shoe itself shall not 

 be heavier than the work requires; that for work a little hard, the shoe 

 shall still be light, with a bit of steel welded into the toe; that the nails 

 shall be as small, and as few, and as far from the heels, as may be con- 

 sistent witii the security of the shoe ; and that, for light work at least, the 

 shoe shall not be driven on so closely and firmly as is often done, nor the 

 points of the nails be brought out so high up as is generally practised. 



There are few cases in which the use of calkins (a turning up and 

 elevation of the heel) can be admissable in the fore-feet, except in frosty 

 weather, to prevent the slipping of the feet. If, however, calkins are used, 

 let them be placed on both feet. If the outer heel only be raised with the 

 calkin, as is too often the case, the weight cannot be thrown evenly on the 

 foot, and undue straining and injury of some part of the foot or of the leg 

 must be the necessary consequences. Few things deserve more the atten- 

 tion of the horseman than this most absurd and injurious of all the practices 

 of the forge. One quarter of an hour's walking, with one side of the 

 shoe or boot raised considerably above the other, will painfully convince us 

 of what the horse must suffer from this too common method of shoeing. 

 We cannot excuse it even in the hunting shoe. If the horse be ridden fiir 

 to cover, or galloped over much hard and flinty ground, he will inevitably 

 .suffer from this unequal distribution of the weight. If the calkin be put 

 on the outer heel to prevent the horse from slipping, either the horn of that 

 heel should be lowered to a corresponding degree, or the other heel of the 

 shoe siiould be raised to the same level by a gradual thickening. Of the 

 use of ca'kins in the hinder foot, we shall presently speak 



