616 THE nSEASES OF THE HORSE 



and then tied with a tape and turned down over the fetlock joint, is quite 

 sufficient to serve this temporary purpose, and being soft it is well calculated 

 to protect a swollen joint ; but if it is worn for any length of time, the 

 pressui'e of the tape and the friction of the grit from the road wear away 

 the hair, and cause an unsightly appearance, which is sometimes permanent. 

 If, therefore, the cutting is not rectified completely in the course of a month 

 or six weeks, a leather or india-rubber boot should be nicely adapted to the 

 joint and buckled round it, the flat surface of the strap not having so 

 injurious an effect as the tape of the cloth boot. When the cutting takes 

 place above the joint, a pad must be adapted to its inside, and fastened round 

 the cannon-bone by two or three buckles, accoixling to the height at which 

 the injury takes place. 



Such is the best mode of guarding against the injury done by cutting, 

 but we must also consider how it can be entirely prevented. In the first 

 place it should be carefully ascertained by what part of the foot or shoe 

 the blow is given. Most commonly it will be found, by chalking the 

 inside of the foot, that a small patch is rubbed clear of chalk, about half- 

 an-inch above the middle of the quarter, and corresponding with the hinder- 

 most nail-hole, especially when four inside nails are used. When this 

 is the hitting-point, if great care is taken to avoid driving in a nail there, 

 the tendency to cut can never be increased, as it often is by a raised clench, 

 and at the same time the rasp may safely be used to reduce the thickness 

 of the hoof at least the eighth of an inch, or often much more. The crust 

 is usually here about thi'ee-eighths of an inch thick, and very often it is 

 so sound that it will bear to be rasped down till there is only one-eighth 

 leit, p7-ovided it has not to bear the j^ressure of a nail near it, and that the 

 I'eduction is not carried up too near to the coi'onet. In the hind-foot the 

 quarter is fully half-an-inch thick, and it therefore will bear reduction 

 better even than the fore-foot. Sometimes the blow is given by the shoe 

 itself, which is fixed on so as to overlap the crust, and then the remedy is 

 simple enough, for this ought never to occur, and can easily be prevented 

 by any smith. But supposing, in spite of these precautions, the cutting 

 still continues after the horse is restored to his natural strength and flesh, 

 can anything be done by shoeing? In most cases this question may be 

 answered in the affirmative, by the use of what is called a feather-edged 

 shoe, which will be described under the head of Shoeing in Chapter xxxviii. 

 By its aid the heels are both raised, not the inner one only (which is 

 entirely useless and even prejudicial, for then the ground surface of the 

 shoe is not a true plane), but both heels, the inner one being narrow, and 

 having no nail-holes beyond the two near the toe, so that there is no 

 danger of the web projecting; nor is there any nail-hole required, with 

 the fear of a clench rising, or of the crust being weakened so as to pre- 

 vent its being thinned to a proper degree. By thus raising the heels (in 

 the hind-foot especially), the fetlock is less bent, and as in horses that 

 cut there is almost always a tendency in their fetlock joints to bend in- 

 wards as well as backwards, this diminution of the angle will not only 

 strengthen the leg in a forward direction, but will also increase the dis- 

 tance between the joints, which is the object to be desired. In the fore- 

 foot the obliquity in this direction is not so frequent, and then the high 

 heel will be of no use ; indeed, it is only when the toes are much turned 



