* STOPPING ' THE HOOF. 95 



and proceeds to ' stop ' it — i.e. to fill the cavity with 

 some mixture which has been recommended to him, 

 and on the virtues of which he implicitly relies. 

 Fresh cowdung is the usual material employed for 

 stopping hoofs, the groom having an idea that 

 because it is soft it is cooling, whereas it really is 

 heating in its effects. 



Then, most grooms possess some special hoof- 

 ointment, and there is hardly one who has not a 

 ' bottle of oils ' to which he pins his faith with a 

 blind trust deserving a better cause. How the ' oils ' 

 are supposed to act on the hoof he does not know, 

 nor care to know, and, as a rule, he is personally 

 affronted if any one wishes to teach him anything of 

 which he is ignorant. 



So he goes on stopping the hoofs with his 

 mixtures, and dressing them with his ointments and 

 oils, which, as Mr. G. Eansom says, ' are used more 

 openly than medicines, and are even highly approved 

 by some owners. 



' First among them rank hoof-ointments, be they 

 either a secret with the stablemen or a patent. It 

 does not make much difference which, as to their 

 non-ability or rather their positive insalubrity. They 

 almost always consist of admixtures of some or all of 

 the following ingredients : Tar, bees-wax, train-oil, 

 tallow, suet, and honey.' 



