88 PRACTICAL HORSESHOEING. 



ture ; pare and rasp it according to " improved princi- 

 ples," and the most labored, expensive, and artistic device 

 in the form of a shoe will not prevent discomfort, un- 

 soundness, disease, and premature uselessness. 



At an early period of my professional career, I was 

 much dissatisfied with the results of shoeing as it is prac- 

 tised in ordinary forges, and with the unreasonableness 

 of the fashion of depriving the foot of its natural and 

 most efiicient protection, and was soon led to perceive that 

 a vast majority of the horses so treated soon became de- 

 formed and lame in their feet ; while some of the diseases 

 occurring higher up in the limbs were likewise due to this 

 cause. 



The rational method here inculcated was then adopted, 

 and now for very many years the only preparation the 

 foot has received for the shoe has been levelling the wall, 

 in conformity with the direction of the limb and foot, and 

 removing as much of its margin as will restore it to its 

 natural length, leaving the sole, frog, bars, and heels in 

 all their integrity. Such has been the treatment of the 

 hoofs of the horses under my care in various parts of the 

 world, and in far more trying circumstances at times, so 

 far as shoeing is concerned, than are likely to occur in the 

 regular work of towns ; and so strong were the hoofs, as a 

 rule — such solid blocks of horn did they appear, that 

 when a shoe was, by some rare chance, lost on a journey, 

 there was no danger whatever to be apprehended from 

 marching the horse ten, twenty, or even thirty miles, 

 without it. Horses have never been pricked in nailing, 

 and foot diseases, it may be said, have been all but un- 

 known. The roughest roads and the sharpest stones can 

 be travelled over with impunity. Nearly every hoof 

 might be taken as a model, and be pronounced as perfect 

 as before the animal was shod many years previously. 



This abstinence from paring and rasping, it will be 



