102 HORSE AND MAN. 



have to do would be to invent a shoe which will pro- 

 tect the whole of the hoof and at the same time will 

 not interfere with its proper functions. But, at the 

 very outset, we are met with difficulties. If all roads 

 were alike, nothing could be simpler, and, as one 

 writer observes, ' The ingenuity of man would de- 

 vise horseshoes to travel over glass, were glass the 

 only pavement in use.' 



But all roads are not alike. There are hilly and 

 level roads, and even these are not alike. Nothing 

 can be more dissimilar than the chalk and flint-paved 

 hills of Derbyshire, or the hard stony hills of North 

 Staffordshire. The level roads of flat country have 

 all their distinctive points of dissimilarity, and so 

 have the roads of cities ; the hard, uneven granite- 

 paved roads of Manchester, for example, having little 

 in common with the asphalte and wood of the 

 London streets. Again, all hoofs are not the same 

 in quality, some being hard and tough, while others 

 are weak and brittle. 



Possibly for these reasons, the variety of horse- 

 shoes that have been produced by ' the ingenuity of 

 man ' is beyond all calculation. One man alone has 

 invented twenty different forms, a tolerably good 

 proof that nineteen of them were faulty, and would 

 damage rather than benefit the horse. 



A very important point in horseshoeing is the 



