PRACTICAL HORSESHOEING. 89 



and brittle. The advocates of hot-fitting though, present 

 many specious arguments for the furtherance of the practice. 

 It is alleged that shoes can not be fitted so rapidly nor so closely 

 by any other means, and this is generally true, for, by burning 

 the shoes on, an accommodation is forced between the hoof and 

 the shoe, and accuracy is thus secured, but at the expense of 

 the right growth and operation of the foot, and any one who is 

 a [)ractical shoer, with any knowledge of anatomy, knows, with- 

 out being told, that " mild and careful '' work in hot-fitting is 

 rare among workmen, while its indiscriminate and excessive 

 use is a matter of every-day occurrence. Horn, being a non- 

 conductor of heat, is slowing affected by it, and it is claimed that 

 three minutes burning of the lower face of the sole is necessary to 

 produce any indication of increase of temperature on its upper 

 surface. This is a fallacy, as I have tested and proven many 

 times, by operating upon and dissecting green specimens with 

 soles of varied thicknesses, when by the application of hot shoes 

 for the specified time, I found that the soles of ordinary depth 

 were penetrated by the heat and the sensitive sole scorched and 

 the laminal tissues burned and charred. In the living subject 

 these effects would have been disastrous, and they convinced me 

 (if that were necessary) that the foot of a horse is in no sense to 

 be compared to an inanimate block of wood which may be 

 carved or charred at man's unholy will, or to suit his capricious 

 whims. 



And because it is a vital organ filled with life and feeling, 

 the necessity which there is of thought, care and skill being ex- 

 ercised in our treatment of it, is pointed out to us by the most 

 indubitable evidences of nature. The economy of time and 

 labor attained in the process of hot-fitting will, I am sure, never 

 counterbalance its evil effects. While it is probably true that 

 more shoes can be fitted in a given time by hot-fitting than by 

 cold, that is no argument in favor of its expediency, for it fol- 

 lows as a logical sequence to be applied here, that it is the con- 



