82 SHOEING. 



Wide-webbed or Surface Shoes are used with flat- 

 footed, weak-soled horses : leather being often intro- 

 duced above them to save the soles from being damaged 

 by extraneous substances on the road. Put on with the 

 ordinary shoe, it is said to lessen the jar of the tread. 



High-heeled Shoes, when a horse is laid up, properly 

 managed, prove a most effectual palliation and aid in the 

 cure of " clap of the back sinew " (page 143). 



These shoes are made with calkins (joined by a light 

 iron bar), which should not be heavy, not more than an 

 inch deep, and gradually reduced by the smith as the 

 disease abates. 



Steeling the Toes is necessary with quick wearers on 

 the road ; but particular cautions should be given to 

 the smith to work the steel well into the iron, for any 

 protrusion of this hard metal above the iron will occa- 

 sion tripping, and possibly an irrecoverable fall. 



Calking the hind shoes moderately on the outside 

 quarter only, is most essential to the hunter to prevent 

 slipping, and to give him confidence in going at his 

 fences, and on landing. Its advantages can be well 

 understood by any sportsman who has experienced the 

 difference between walking himself a day's simple 

 shooting over soft slippery ground, or taking a ten- 

 mile walk on a half-wet road, in each case in boots with 

 headed nails, to enable him to have a hold in the 

 ground, and undertaking the same exercises in boots 

 without nails, where one wearies himself with efforts to 

 keep his feet. 



I speak as a practical man, having probably come to 

 less grief than most others in hunting, which may be 

 attributed mainly to the particular attention bestowed 

 on the calking of my bearers when I was a hard goer. 



