SANDCRACK. 473 



be kept for a few hours daily in a bed of clay, care being 

 taken, while he remains turned out, that the tip be removed 

 every three or four weeks, or, should he have cast and lost his 

 tip, that the wall of the shoeless hoof be kept rasped down, lest 

 he should break away or crack the horn, and so render his 

 feet incapable, when taken up, of having shoes nailed to them. 

 From two to three months at least should be allowed the horse 

 from the period of his being turned out. 



SANDCRACK. 



The -Name of Sandcrack seems of questionable appli- 

 cation. It is evidently a compound of the words sand and 

 crack, as though it denoted a crack with sand in it, or a crack 

 occurring in a sandy country, or in a dry sandy season, which 

 several derivations have been ascribed to the term. May not 

 the word sand admit of resolution into its primitive signification, 

 and mean in this, as in other instances, a sundered crack.* 



A Sandcrack may be defined to be, a longitudinal 

 division in the fibres of the wall of the hoof, amounting to a 

 flaw simply, or else to a cleft or fissure through the substance of 

 the horn. 



. The Direction of the Crack is slanting, from above 

 downward, and from behind forward, following the course of 

 the fibres of the hoof. A sandcrack in the side of the wall 

 slants more than one in front, owing to the greater obliquity of 

 the course of the horny fibres as we proceed from the toe to the 

 heel of the foot. 



There are two Kinds of SkT<ii>CRkCK, quarter sandcrack 

 and toe sandcrack : the former occurring in the fore, the latter 

 in the hind foot. At least this is generally the case. It is rare 

 to find the reverse; though there are occasions on which we 

 meet with sandcrack in the toe of the fore foot, and the quarter 

 of the hind foot. It is possible for cracks to occur in other parts 



* The Anglo-Saxon Sundrian or Syndrian, to sunder, presents an obvious 



origin for sand, which is sundered or separated into the smallest particles. — 

 Richardson^s Dictionary. 



VOL. IV. 3 P 



