CHAPTER XXXVIII 



To SHOE OR NOT TO SHOE, that is the question which every few years 

 provides newspapers with cheap copy, when the sea-serpent's claims have 

 for the time failed to draw. Why were horses first shod 1 There can be 

 only one answer to that question, and it includes a i^efutation of the oft- 

 repeated statement that present-day horses have had their feet so spoilt by 

 shoeing that it has become a necessity. If it were true, which it is not, 

 that Arab horses are never shod on the dry and sandy soil of Arabia proper, 

 it would not prove that in this humid climate and on macadamized roads 

 horses' feet are able to bear the attrition which ordinary work necessitates. 

 Look in at the village farrier's, if you will, and choose a flat country as well, 

 and examine the feet of colts about to be shod for the first time. How 

 many will you find whose feet are not already broken and misshapen ? Still 

 more so is this the case when the ground is hilly and uneven, although 

 nature provides a harder and more upright foot for those bred on high 

 ground. 



If, however, the feet of the unbroken colt are good enough to support 

 his frolics at pasture without artificial covering, there are but very few 

 capable of bearing the strain of work upon the roads. The few consist of 

 horses used upon the fens for agricultural work, and now and again one 

 belonging to a faddist, who can accomplish a journey of a few miles upon 

 the level wooden or asphalt roads of the city and West-End of London. 

 Experiments have again and again been made, but ended in failure. The 

 evils of shoeing are many and great, but in accepting the services of the 

 farrier we are choosing the lesser evil. Mr. Hunting, in his At't of Horse 

 Shoeing, says : " The gentleman with a fad, who occasionally appears in 

 England with unshod horses at work, is an unconscious impostor. He sets 

 his little experience against the common-sense and universal practice of others. 

 The shoeless experiment has been tried over and over again, but always with 

 the same result — a return to shoeing. In dry weather the hoof becomes 

 hard, and it is wonderful how much wear it will then stand on the hardest 

 of roads. In wet weather the hoof becomes soft, and then the friction on 

 hard roads soon prohibits work without shoes. If work be persisted in, 

 under such circumstances, the hoof rapidly wears away and lameness results. 

 Persons trying to prove a preconceived theory meet this difficulty by resting 

 the horse until the horn grows, but business men, who keep horses for work 



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