40 RATIONAL HORSE-SHOEING. 



horse-railroads, have acquired a habit of slip- 

 ping and sliding along, catching with heel- 

 calks in the space between the stones ; such 

 horses do not at once relinquish the habit, 

 and wear their first set of our shoes much 

 more rapidly than the subsequent set, after 

 they have assumed the natural action of their 

 feet. But, economical as a light shoe that will 

 long outlast a heavy one may be, the great 

 saving: is in the item of horse-flesh. 



The value of the horses employed in the 

 actual labor of the country reaches a start- 

 ling sum total. 



The vast importance of the horse in the 

 movement of business, was never so fully 

 understood and deeply felt as during the year 

 j)ast, when the epizootic swept over the con- 

 tinent, paralyzing all movement and every 

 form of human industry. Even the ships 

 that whiten the seas would furl their sails 

 and steamers quench their fires but for the 

 labors of the horse. During the epidemic 

 the canal -boats waited idly for their pa- 

 tient tow-horses and railroads carried little 

 freight ; the crops of the West lay in the 



