ILLUSTRATED GUIDE. 77 



be turned up from the ground to remove it out of the line 

 of wear. 



We all know that horses go better and stumble less in 

 old shoes than they do in new ones, and the reason why 

 they do so is, because they have worn away the toe, and 

 no longer jar the foot by striking the toe against hard 

 substances in the road. A new shoe turned up at the toe 

 is the same thing to the horse as an old one worn down, 

 but with this great difference to his comfort, that he is 

 easy upon the new one from the time it was first put on, 

 whereas he was never easy upon the old one until he had 

 worn away the toe. When a horse wears his shoe hard 

 at the toe, it is the custom of most smiths to weld a lump 

 of steel on it to make him longer in wearing it away. 

 But this only increases the jar to his foot, whereas, turn- 

 ing up the toe makes the shoe last quite as long, and 

 saves the horse from a great deal of unnecessary suffering. 

 A strong foot will bear the toe to be turned up a good 

 deal, but a flat foot is always weak at the toe, and cannot 

 bear the removal of any of the horn .from it. The best 

 way, therefore, of dealing with a very flat foot is to fit 

 the shoe to it without turning up the toe, then to make 

 the toe of the shoe red-hot and place it in the vise with 

 the ground surface toward you, and in that position rasp 

 the iron away from that part of the toe which would 

 have rested on the ground ; the horse will travel safer 

 and better for it, and the loss of a little iron from the 

 toe will not cause the shoe to wear out faster, for a fleet- 

 footed horse will generally wear away the heels of a shoe 

 long before he has worn out the toe. I will now suppose 

 that you have turned up the toe of the shoe, shortened 

 the toe of the hoof, rasped the crust to receive the turned- 



