PRACTICAL HORSESHOEING. 71 



tive agent, for so many of the injuries and diseases affecting the 

 health and soundness of the horse, scientific shoeing should 

 occupy a foremost place ; yet it is a matter of deep regret that 

 among this class of practitioners are many men who have neg- 

 lected to properly study this most important branch of their 

 profession, or, having acquired only an imperfect conception of it 

 through books, are unable to direct it with necessary discretion 

 to any salutary effect ; or, as has so frequently come within the 

 trend of my experience, altogether pervert it, to the continued 

 detriment of the patient and of the business interests involved 

 as well. The moral of this is obvious. No humbug use of iron, 

 nor theoretical experiments with it on the one side, nor blind 

 groping in the dark on the other, will ever solve the " problems 

 of farriery," simple and easy as they really are, but made 

 difficult contentions in the hands of quacks and ignorant 

 practitioners. 



Essential knowledge. — To rescue the practice from such 

 hands is the work of that higher knowledge to which I have 

 already referred, and it is the application of such general facts 

 of veterinary anatomy as explain the construction and functions 

 of the foot, to the practical business of shoeing that will most 

 largely contribute to this end. How, otherwise, can the smith 

 he expected to understand the normal size, shape and structure 

 of the foot upon which he operates, or how know the correct 

 principles of shoeing and balancing a horse on his feet? 



When a horse is at the shoeing forge " it is a condition, not 

 a theory," that confronts the smith, and there is no longer room 

 for doubt, and unless he knows, with positive certainty, just how 

 to preserve or obtain the proper balances and bearings of the 

 foot he is utterly incapacitated to take charge of it. Science 

 and art are combined in skillful shoeing. A knowledge of the 

 structure and normal functions of every part of the foot, as well 

 as of the legs from the knee and hock down, though not neces- 



