30 THE PRACTICAL HORSE SHOER. 



on pavements and dry roads, will get hard and dr3\ Now? 

 I believe thoroughly in stuffing" horses' feet. Some will ask 

 what is the best thing to pack a horse's feet with. Some 

 use moss and water, but I don't like it, as I find it makes a 

 foot g-row ver^^ fast but very thin, and consequently very 

 weak. The best thing I know of for keeping the heat and 

 fever out and grow a good solid foot is salt or marsh mud. 

 If it cannot be got, take oil-meal or flaxseed meal and make 

 a poultice. Put it on warm. Use it every night until you 

 see a change, which will be before long. You will find that 

 it will give your horse a great deal of comfort, besides 

 saving- a larg-e amount of time which a smith has to spend 

 in trying to trim, when it ought to take only a very little. 

 Every horse owner who loves a good horse should look 

 caretully after this matter, as a smith cannot trim a foot 

 properl^^ unless it is in a healthy condition. 



Another important point in trimming is to commence 

 early. This week I have seen two 3'Oung colts trimmed, 

 one nine and the other nineteen months old. They were 

 both trimmed last fall, and the colt nine months old had 

 the most perfect feet. Let a colt run until he is three years 

 old, and you not only have imperfect feet, but you have a 

 bad colt to shoe where 3^ou might have had a lamb for 

 gentleness. They should get used to the shop and to having 

 their feet handled. I have seen some colts, three and four 

 years old, so bad to shoe that it seemed almost impossible 

 to do anything with them. 



Youth is the time when so many colts are spoiled for 

 shoeing ever after, for the lesson they learn in the black- 

 smith shop when the}^ are young they never forget. If 

 the^^ experience kindness the3^ will not show fear. If they 

 meet with abuse, then it is trouble you will g*et with the 

 most of them afterward. I have seen colts, and even old 

 horses, all right until they got to the shop, and then they 

 were ready for almost anything except what 3"ou wanted of 



