36 PRACTICAL HOKSESHOEING. 



This fact must have "been brought prominently before 

 the primitive shoers thousand of years ago, as the earliest 

 specimens of shoes yet discovered are narrow, and in 

 width do not much exceed the thickness of the wall. To 

 guarantee this from wear was to increase the value of the 

 horse a thousandfold, and the simply- wrought, narrow rim 

 of iron, boldly and securely attached to the hoof by a 

 few rudely-shaped nails, was sufficient for the purpose. 



Rut having fastened on this light metallic armature, 

 and allowed it to remain fixed to the hoof for a lengthened 

 period, it would soon be discovered that the balance be- 

 tween growth and wear was again disturbed, but this time 

 in favor of growth ; for the wall being removed from con- 

 tact with the ground, and the rate of growth continuing 

 as in the unshod state, the hoof, instead of becoming di- 

 minished as before, now became abnormally overgrown 

 and caused inconvenience. Then the shoe required to be 

 taken off, and the superfluous growth either removed by 

 instruments and the shoe replaced, or the animal made to 

 travel without the iron defence until it was again needed 

 when the hoof had become too much worn. 



Such was horseshoeing, in all probability, in early 

 times, and such it is at the present day where utility is 

 not sacrificed to stupid theories or foolish practices. 



The evils attending the usual methods of shoeing are, 

 as has been said, very serious and glaring ; and the chief 

 of these do not so much depend upon the faulty conforma- 

 tion of the shoe — though this is, in the majority of cases, 

 not to be exempted from blame — as upon the treatment 

 the hoof receives before and after the application of that 

 article. 



To illustrate these evils, and to show how unreason- 

 able the modern art of farriery is, as well as how it should 

 be practised, we will commence with the foot of the un- 

 shod colt, and, in the simplest words at our command, in- 



