66 PRACTICAL HORSESHOEING. 



calkins. While stationed with my regiment in Edinburgh 

 in 1864-'65, 1 obtained permission to dispense with cal- 

 kins on the hind-shoes (they are not worn on the fore- 

 shoes of cavalry-horses), and though the orderly and other 

 duties were somewhat heavy on the streets of that city — 

 which are perhaps the most slippery in Britain — no acci- 

 dent occurred. 



For more than three years I have been stationed in 

 a large garrison town in the south of England with 

 nearly three hundred horses — 'most of which are draught 

 — in my charge. The greater portion of these animals 

 are employed several hours every day conveying heavy 

 loads up and down very badly-made and excessively-steep 

 roads ; no calkins or toe-pieces are worn, no slipping is 

 ever observed, while the sprains and injuries arising from 

 the use of calkins are unknown. 



This immunity I attribute not alone to the absence of 

 these projections, but to the care always taken to keep the 

 hoofs healthy, properly adjusted, and strong, with the 

 frogs resting as much as possible on the ground. 



In attempting to prevent slipping, and to afford a firm 

 hold of the ground, without having recourse to calkins, a 

 great object is to diminish the wide surface of metal of 

 the shoe, without interfering, but as little as possible, 

 with its resistance to wear. The simplest method of doing 

 this is merely to change the bevel on the foot-surface of 

 the ordinary shoe to its ground-surface — making what is 

 now concave, flat, and what is now the flat slippery 

 ground-surface, concave. The effect is almost magical in 

 the security it gives the animal during progression, and 

 is best exemplified in the case of the hunter, which is 

 usually shod with shoes of this description. Here, again, 

 we are only imitating Nature by copying the concavity 

 of the sole. There can be no doubt whatever as to the 

 advantages to be gained by using such shoes. The sole 



