512 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



crack has readied tlie quick, that must be done 

 ■which ought to be done in eveiy case — a skill- 

 ful surgeon should be consulted, otherwise false 

 quarter may ensue. 



False Quarter is & division of the ligament 

 by which the crust is secreted. It is one of the 

 varieties of sand-crack, and exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to cure. 



Tread or Overreach is a clumsy habit of set- 

 ting one foot upon or bruising the other. It 

 should immediately and carefully be attended 

 to, or a bad case o{ quittpr may ensue. 



Qiiiltor is the fonnation of little pipes be- 

 tween the crust and the hoof, by means of which 

 the purulent matter secreted from some wound 

 beneath the crust makes its escape. The heal 

 ing of this, and of every species of pr-ick or 

 ironvd in the sole or crust, is often exceedingly 

 difficult. 



Corns are said to exist when the posterior 

 part of the foot between the external crust and 

 the bars is unnaturally contracted and becomes 

 inflamed. Corns are the consequence of con- 

 tinued and unnatural pressure. The thorough 

 cure of corns -will put the ingenuity of the op- 

 erator to the trial. 



Thrush is the consequence of unnatural 

 pressure on the frog. It is the cause and the 

 effect of contraction, whether it is found in the 

 heels of the fore feet or the hinder ones. It 

 is not difficult to cure when taken in time, but 

 when neglected it often becomes a very seri- 

 ous matter. 



Canker is the consequence of thrush, or, in- 

 deed, of almost every disease of the foot. It is 

 attended by a greater or less s'eparation of horn, 

 which sometimes leaves the whole of the sole 

 bare. This, also, like the diseases of the foot 

 genefally, is difficult of cure. 



Few things are more neglected, and yet of 

 greater importance to the comfort and dura- 

 bility of the Horse, than a proper sjstem of 

 shoeing. It is necessary that the foot .^ihould be 

 defended from the wear and tear of the roads, 

 but that very defence too often entails on the 

 animal a degree of injury and suffering scarcely 

 credible. The shoe is fixed to the foot, and of- 

 ten interferes with and limits the beautiful ex- 

 pansibility of that organ, and thus causes much 

 unnecessary concussion and mischief 



The shoe of a healthy foot should offer a per- 

 fectly flat surface to the ground. The bearing 

 m weight of the Horse will then be diffused 

 over the surface of the shoe, and there will be 

 no injurious accumulation of it on different 

 points. Too often, however, there is a convexi- 

 ty toward the inner edge, which causes an ine- 

 quality of bearing, and breaks and destroys the 

 crust. Round the outer edge of the shoe, and 

 extended over two-thirds of it on the lower .sur- 

 face, a groove is sunk, through which pass the 

 nails for the fastening of the shoe. At first they 

 somewhat project, but they arc soon worn down 

 to the level of the shoe, which in the healthy 

 foot should not vary from the heel to the toe. 



The width of the shoe will depend on that of 

 tLc foot. The general rule is that it should y)ro- 

 tect the sole from injury, and be as wide at the 

 heel as the frog will permit. 



The upper surface of the shoe should be dif- 

 ferently formed. It should be flat along the up- 

 per end, outer supporting the crust, or, in other 

 words, the weight of the horse, and widest at 

 the heel, so as to meet and with.stand the shock 

 of the bars and the crust. The inner portion of 

 the shoe should be beveled off, in order that, in 

 (10,36) 



the descent of the sole, that part of the foot may 

 not be bruised. The owner of the Horse should 

 occasionally be present when the shoes are re- 

 moved, and he will be too often surprised to see 

 how far the smith, almost wilfully, deviates from 

 the right construction of this apparently simple 

 apparatus The beveled shoe is a little more 

 troublesome to make and to apply than that 

 which is often u.sed by the village smith, but it 

 will be the owner's fault if his directions are not 

 implicitly obeyed. 



Even at the commencement of the operation 

 of shoeing, the eye of the master or the trust- 

 worthy groom will be requi.site. The shoe is 

 often tor., from the foot in a most violent and 

 cniel way. Scarcely half the clenches are 

 raised when the smith seizes the shoe with his 

 pincers and forcibly wrenches it off. The 

 shrinking of the Horse will tell how much he 

 suffer.s, and the fragme^its of the crust will also 

 afford sufficient proofs of the mischief that has 

 been done, especially when it is recollected that 

 every nail-hole is enlarged by this brutal force, 

 and the future safety of the slioe to a greater or 

 less degree weakened, and pieces of the nail 

 are sometimes left in the substance of the crust, 

 which become the cause of future disease. 



In the paring out of the foot, also, there is fre- 

 quently great mischief done. The formidable 

 bti/teris is still often found in the smithy of the 

 country farrier, although it is banished from the 

 practice of every [respectable operator. A worse 

 evil, however, remains. By the butteris much 

 of the sole was injuriously removed, and the 

 foot \vas occasionally weakened, but the draio- 

 ingknifc frequently left a portion of sole suffi- 

 cient to destroy the elasticity of the foot, and to 

 lay the foundation for contraction, corns and per- 

 manent lameness. One object, then, of the 

 looker-on is to ascertain the actual state of the 

 foot. On the descent of the cinist, when the 

 foot is placed on the ground, depends the elas- 

 ticity and healthy state of the foot, and that may 

 be satisfactorily determined by the yielding of 

 the sole, although to a very slight degree, when 

 it is strongly pressed upon with the thumb. The 

 sole being pared out, the crust on each side may 

 be lowered, but never reduced to a level with 

 the sole, otherwise this portion will be exposed 

 to continual injury. 



The heels often suffer considerably fi-om the 

 carelessness or ignorance of the smith. The 

 weight of the Horse is not thrown equably on 

 them, but considerably more on the inner than 

 the outer quarter. The consequence of this is 

 that the inner heel is worn down more than the 

 outer, and the foundation is laid for tenderness 

 and ulceration. The smith is too often inatten- 

 tive to this, and pares away an equal quantity 

 of horn from the inner and outer heel, leaving 

 the former weaker and lower, and less able to 

 support the weight thrown upon it. 



Mention has already been made of the nse of 

 the bars in admitting and yet limiting to its prop- 

 er extent the expansion of the foot. The smith 

 in the majority of country forges, and in too 

 many of those that disgrace the metropolis, .seema 

 to have waged interminable war with these por- 

 tions of the foot, and avails himself of eveiy op- 

 portunity to pare them down, or perfectly de- 

 stroy them, forgetting, or never having learned, 

 that' the destruction of the bars necessarily leads 

 to contraction by removing the chief impedi- 

 ment to it. 



The horn between the crust and the bar should 

 be well pared out. Every one accustomed to 



