THE FOOT, 



29i> 



There has been some dispute as to the propriety of cutting the hair from the heels.* 

 Custom has very properly retained the hair on our farm-horses. Nature would not 

 have given it, had it not been useful. It guards the heel from being injured by the 

 inequalities of the ploughed field ; it prevents the dirt, in which the heels are cor. 

 stantly enveloped, from reaching and caking on, and irritating the skin; it hinders 

 the usual moisture which is mixed with the clay and mould from reaching the skin 

 and it preserves an equal temperature in the parts. If the hair is suffered to remain 

 on the heels of the farm-horses, there is greater necessity for brushing and hand-rub- 

 bing the heels, and never washing them. 



Fashion and utility have removed the hair from the heels of our hackney and car- 

 riage horses. When the horse is carefully tended after his work is over, and his legs 

 quickly and completely dried, the less hair he has about them the better, for then 

 both the skin and the hair can be made perfectly dry before evaporation begins, or 

 proceeds so far as to deprive the legs of their heat. Grease is the child of negligence 

 and mismanagement. It is driven from our cavalry, and it will be the fault of the 

 gentleman and the farmer if it is not speedily banished from every stable. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 THE FOOT. 



a The external crust seen at 

 the quarter. 



h The coronary ring. 



c Tlie little horny plates lining 

 the crust. 



d The same continued over the 

 bars. 



e e The two concave surfaces 

 of the inside of the horny frog. 



/ That which externally is the 

 cleft of the frog. 



g The bars. 



h The rounded part of the heels, 

 belonging to the frog. 



This smaller cut exhibits, in as satisfactory a manner, the mechanism and struc- 



ture of the base of the foot. 



* Professor Stewart has the following observations: — "During two very wet winters I 

 nad opportunity of observing the resuhs of trimming and no trimming, among upwards of 

 500 horses. More than 300 of these have been employed in coaching and posting, or work 

 of a similar kind, and about 150 are cart-horses. Grease, and other skin diseases of the heels 

 have been of most frequent occurrence where the horses are both trimmed and washed ; they 

 have been common where the horses were trimmed but not washed, and there have been 

 very few cases where washing or trimming were forbidden or neglected." — Stable (Economy, 

 oage 116. 



