THE PRACTICAL HORSESHOER. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The first method of protecting- the horse's feet was by 

 means of buskins, as they were termed ; then came a net- 

 work, and lastly metal shoes. The impetuous action of the 

 animals, their weight, and the angular form of the hoof 



have given much trouble about the manner of fastening on 

 the shoes. 



In Japan a kind of rushwork is used, which wraps the 

 whole hoof, but it wears so fast on the road that travelers 

 take a quantity with them on a journey, and poor people 

 have them ready-made for sale at stopping places. The 

 Mongols in high northern places shoe their horses with the 

 palmy parts of reindeer horns. 



In ancient Persia, where the breeds of gray, dun and bay 

 racers are all hard-hoofed, the use of shoes in the sandy dis- 

 tricts was needless, and not much attention was required 

 to the abrasion of horn ; but in the higher and more stony 

 districts, where the frog and edges of the hoof became more 

 tender, it was looked to. In rapid and long-continued 

 marches the hardest hoofed animals became crippled, and 

 in history we find more than one instance where military ex- 

 peditions were arrested in their progress until the horses 

 had time to recover and restore their hoofs. These occur- 

 red chiefly when great operations were directed by foreign 

 commanders who trusted to their energy for surmounting ob- 

 stacles which native warriors believed to be impracticable. 

 Thus Alexander the Great, at the siege of Cyzicus, was 

 thwarted and delayed, while the Persians, under Darius, 

 and the Parthians appear to have been equally distressed 



under similar circumstances. 



5 



