190 SHOEING. 



Yarious experiments, which have been made for the purpose 

 of ascertaining how few nails are absolutely necessary under 

 ordinary circumstances for retaining a slioe securely in its place, 

 have satisfactorily established that five nails are amply sufficient 

 for the fore-shoes and seven for the hind. The nails should not 

 be driven high up in the crust, but brought out as soon as pos- 

 sible; they should also be very lightly driven up before the 

 clinchers are turned down, and not, as is generally the case, 

 forced up with all the power which the smith can bring to bear 

 upon them with his hammer. The clinches should not be 

 rasped away too fine, but turned down broad and firm. The 

 practice of rasping the whole surface of the hoof after the 

 clinches have been turned down, should never be allowed ; it 

 destroys the covering provided by nature as a protection against 

 the too rapid evaporation of the moisture of the hoof, and 

 causes the horn to become dry and brittle. 



The fear, very commonly entertained, that a shoe will be cast 

 almost at every step, unless it is held to the foot by eight or 

 nine nails driven high up into the crust, is utterly groundless, 

 as both theory and practice concur in asserting. If the pre- 

 sence of a nail in the crust were a matter of no moment, and 

 two or three more than are necessary were merely useless, no 

 great reason would exist for condemning the common practice 

 of using too many nails ; but it is far otherwise ; — the nails 

 separate the fibres of the horn, which never by any chance be- 

 come united again, but continue apart and unclosed, until by 

 degrees they grow down with the rest of the hoof, and are 

 finally, after repeated shoeings, removed by the knife. 



If the clinches chance to rise, they must be at once replaced,. 

 as such rising imparts to the nails a freedom of motion which 



