SHOEING, .IS-S 



removal of any portion from the sides of the bars must diminish 

 their substance, and render them weaker, and consequently 

 less able to resist contraction. 



The frog should never be cut or pared, except in very rare 

 cases of horses with unusually fast-growing frogs. The first 

 stroke of the knife removes the thin hornj covering altogether, 

 and lays bare an under surface, totally unfitted, from its moist, 

 soft texture, for exposure either to the hard ground or the 

 action of the air, in consequence of which exposure it soon 

 becomes dry and shrinks ; then follow cracks, the edge of 

 which turning outward forms rags ; these rags are removed 

 by the smith at the next shoeing, by which means another 

 similar surface is exposed, and another foundation laid for 

 other rags ; and this process continues until finally the pro- 

 truding, plump, elastic cushion, interposed by nature between 

 the navicular joint and the ground, and so essential to its 

 preservation from injury, is converted by this senseless inter- 

 ference into the dry, shrunk, unyielding apology for a frog, to 

 be seen in the foot of almost every horse that has been regu- 

 larly shod for a few years. The frog is provided within itself 

 with two very efficient modes of throwing ofi" any superfluous 

 horn with which it may be troubled, and it is very unwise in 

 man to interfere with them. The first and most common of 

 these modes is the separation from the surface of the frog of 

 small, bran-like scales, which becoming dry, fall off in a kind, 

 of whitish scurf, not unlike the dust that adheres to Turkey 

 figs ; the other, which is upon a large scale, and of rarer oc- 

 currence, is sometimes called "casting the frog." A thick 

 layer of frog separates itself in a body, and shells off as deep 

 as ft common paring with a knife j but this very important 



