SHOEING. 81 



understood by any sportsman who has experienced the 

 difference between walking liimself a day's simple shoot- 

 ing 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, 

 w^here one wearies himself with efforts to keep his feet. 



I speak as a jDractical 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 w^hen I was a hard goer. 

 It seems an unimportant matter, but if looked into will 

 be found to be far otherwise. 



TiiDSy or half-shoes, which cover little more than the 

 toe of a horse, leaving the heels to come in direct con- 

 tact with the ground, are particularly serviceable in 

 cases where the heels are disposed to contraction, and, 

 from my experience, can be used without injury in any 

 ordinary description of work while the frog is sound. 



The quarters of the feet being left by their use with- 

 out the usual confinement of the shoe, and being pressed 

 to expansion on every movement of the animal, natur- 

 ally become strong and extended. Tips should become 

 gradually thinner, finishing in a fine edge towards the 

 ends. I have seen ill-made tips calculated to lame any 

 horse, with the ends the thickness of an ordinary shoe 

 (though extending, which is the intention of tips, less 

 than half-way down the foot), as if the ^mith who made 

 them expected the heels to remain always suspended in 

 mid air. 



Slippers. — Regular sportsmen generally carry a spare 

 shoe while hunting ; but if a shoe comes off one of the 

 fore feet in the field or on the road, and the rider is 



p 



