INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



Modern farriery has become one of the most progressive 

 of the sciences. For many years the standard works of the 

 English, French and German authors were reprinted and fol- 

 lowed as if the subject had been exhausted by them. But this 

 view has given place in America to the most rigid examination 

 into the wants of the American trotting horse, the latest devel- 

 opment of the high bred and swift trotting horse; so that in- 

 stead of American farriery being confined to the proper dressing 

 of the foot and shoeing of the sound and the unsound horse, in- 

 vestigation has been extended to the action or gait, and many 

 invaluable shoeing devices have been invented by the ingenious 

 American mind to regulate, as well as to control the action of 

 the horse both at the walk and at full speed. This is so great 

 a step in advance that European works are no longer regarded 

 as the highest standard of authority, but the American treatises 

 have largely taken their place both in Europe and America. 



The author has been impressed with this conviction for 

 more than a decade. For forty years he has been a practical 

 blacksmith, and has shod all grades of horses from the ponder- 

 ous Norman to the fleet-footed thoroughbred race horse. His 

 place of business has been headquarters for the treatment of 

 every species of lameness and abnormal condition of the foot, 

 as well as the smithy for perfecting the gait and developing the 

 speed, by the introduction of such shoes as each individual 

 horse under treatment demanded. 



Moreover, he has patiently studied the anatomy, pathology 

 and mechanical action of the foot, limb and body, so that by 

 this dual mastery of the theoretical and practical science of 



(xi) 



