THE PRACTICAL HORSESHOER. 21 



after the race, I found her feet so soft from having- been 

 stuffed with linseed meal that she actually could not g-o 

 without flinching, and the smell from her feet was enough 

 to knock one over." 



Said I, " Did you not drive this mare ^^esterday against 

 the same horse that beat her in straight heats three weeks 

 ago ?" 



^^ I did," he replied, '^ and she won in three heats, under 

 a good pull all the way, and is going now as sound as a 

 colt. She wants no stuffing of feet ; just * tub her out ' once 

 in a while. It doesn't do to keep a horse's feet too soft." 



One writer says : '^ I have found more trouble caused by 

 not cutting enough than by cutting too much ; I like to see 

 all dead tissue cut away." 



Into just such hands a friend of mine fell who had a good 

 road horse that could trot in about two-thirty, and a sound- 

 going one she was, as sure-footed as a deer. Not long 

 after the ^^ cutting away of all dead tissue" began, this 

 well-shod animal with good feet surprised her driver b^^ 

 falling down, and in the space of six months fell five or six 

 times, while in traveling she often flinched as though her 

 fore-feet were tender. **Stop cutting," said a man whose 

 advice was asked. The cutting w^as stopped, except to cut 

 from the w^all enough at each shoeing to keep pace with the 

 growth, leaving the sole untouched, and this valuable horse 

 is just as good and sure-footed as ever again. 



'^ Fitted with a bearing all around the wall except the 

 heels," says this Avriter, and he continues: *^ George in 

 shoeing a horse forward fitted the shoes lightly on the 

 heel." 



Now, there can be no more reprehensible practice in shoe- 

 ing than this of fitting a shoe so that when nailed on, and 

 drawn home and clinched, there is an open space between 

 the shoe and the heels of all the way from one-sixteenth of 

 an inch to a full quarter of an inch, this space growing less 



