182 HORSE AND MAN. 



hoof, and that the owner did not dare to put on 

 a shoe. 



It is quite certain that in the case of the Man- 

 chester pony, the animal's troubles began after the 

 shoes were applied, and that for some of them, such 

 as the lodgment of stones, the shoe was the sole 

 cause. 



I will give two more examples of horses that work 

 without shoes. 



Having heard that Mr. Theodore E. Williams, of 

 Salterley Grange, near Cheltenham, had for some 

 time freed his horses from shoes, I wrote for 

 further information, and received the following 

 answer : — 



« September 15, 1884. 



'In reply to your request for information respect- 

 ing my unshod horses, I may observe that I first 

 discarded shoes about three years ago in conse- 

 quence of a hunter called "Prince" being slightly 

 lame a day or two after hunting in the dry weather 

 of March, which I attributed to the concussion with 

 the iron shoe on hard ground. 



' Considering how this was to be avoided, I felt 

 that the iron was harder even than the ground over 

 which the horse had to travel ; I therefore deter- 

 mined to remove the shoes, and to allow the horse's 

 hoofs to recover their natural shape and condition, 



