THE GROOM 137 



or something is bad — anything but that their manage- 

 ment is bad. Some fellows are fit for nothing but 

 inventing excuses, and uncommonly quick and clever 

 they are. 



Veterinary surgeons are now so distributed about 

 the country that in anything out of the ordinary way 

 it is best to send for one of them. With horses, as 

 with men, cold and repletion are the principal causes 

 of illness, and when bleeding and physicing fail, let 

 not a master persevere, but send for the "vet." 

 Horses sometimes fall lame without any one, not even 

 the "vet," being able to discover the seat of the 

 lameness, and will as suddenly get well and disappoint 

 all the prognostications of the learned. Physic is 

 then the thing — it can do no harm, if it does no good 

 — given in moderation, of course. 



Shoeing is a thing that the green-horns of service 

 are little acquainted with the importance of. They 

 are always "just going" to get their horses shod, let 

 the shoes be ever so thin, when they are asked about 

 them. Foot lameness, that curse of good horseflesh, 

 whose origin " no one knows nothing of," may be all 

 traced to indolent, ignorant stablemen — Grooms we 

 will not call them — and clumsy unskilful blacksmiths. 

 Some men make a fuss about seeing their horses 

 fed ; we would rather see them shod. Shoeing is a 

 thing upon which doctors differ, as well as upon 

 other points. One man will tell you that the shoe 

 should be made to fit the foot, and not the foot 

 burnt with the hot iron to make it fit the shoe, while 

 others will say that if the shoe be not burnt and fitted 

 well, the crust breaks and shivers up. Both these 

 statements may be found in " printed books." Per- 

 haps it may be enough for us to observe that a horse 

 should be shod every three weeks or a month, and 

 that it is better to get them shod every three weeks, 

 than removed at that period, and shod at the end of 

 the month. The less wrenching and country-smith 



