408 CONTRACTION. 



backward, and the functions of the foot are usefully if not perfectly 

 performed. The plain proof of this is, that although there are many 

 horses that are injured or ruined by bad shoeing, there are others, and they 

 are a numerous class, who suffer not at all from good shoeing, and 

 scarcely even from bad. Except it be from accident, how seldom is the 

 farmer's horse lame ; and it might even be farther asked, how seldom is 

 his foot much contracted ? Some gentlemen who are careful of their 

 horses have driven them twenty years, and pi-incipally over the rough 

 pavements of towns, without a day's lameness. Shoeing may be a neces- 

 sary evil, but it is not the evil wliich some speculative persons have 

 supposed it to be ; and the undoubted fact is, that when the horse is put 

 to real hard work, and when the injury produced by shoeing in destroying 

 the expansibility of the foot would most of all show itself, the foot lasts a 

 great deal longer than the leg ; nay, horsemen tell us that one pair of 

 good feet is worth two pair of legs. 



Having thus premised that contraction is not inevitably accompanied by 

 lameness, and that shoeing, -with all its evils, does not necessarily produce 

 it, those cases of contraction, too numerous, wliich are the consequence 

 of our stable management, and which do cripple and ruin the horse, may 

 be considered. There is nothing in the appearance of the feet which 

 would enable us to decide when contraction is or is not destructive to the 

 nsefalness of the animal ; his manner of going, and his capability for 

 work, must be our guides. Lameness sometimes accompanies the begin- 

 ning of contraction ; it is frequently attendant on rapid contraction, but it 

 does not always exist when the imring in is slow or of long standing, 



A very excellent writer, particularly when treating of the foot of the 

 horse, Mr. Blaine, has given us a long and correct list of the causes of 

 injurious contraction, and most of them are, fortunately, under the control 

 of the owner of the animal. He places at the head of them, neglect of 

 faring. The hoof is continually growing, the crust is lengthening, and 

 the sole is thickening. This is a provision for the wear and tear of the 

 foot in an unshod state ; but when it is protected by a shoe, and none of 

 the horn can be worn away by coming in contact "with the ground, and 

 the growth of horn continues, the hoof grows high, and the sole gets 

 thick, and, in consequence of this, the descent of the sole and the expan- 

 sion of the heels are prevented, and contraction is the result. The smith 

 might lessen, if not prevent the evil, by carefully thinning the sole and 

 lowering the heels at each shoeing ; but the first of these is a matter of 

 considerable labour, and the second could not be done effectually without 

 being accompanied by the first, and therefore they are both neglected. 

 The prejudice of many owners of horses assists in increasing the evil ; 

 they imagine that a great deal of mischief is done by cutting aiuaij the 

 foot. Mischief may be the result of injudicious cutting, when the bars 

 are destroyed, and the frog is elevated from the ground ; but more evil 

 results from the unyielding thickness of the horn of the sole impairing 

 the elastic and expansive principle of the foot. If gentlemen would 

 occasionally stand by, and see that the sole is properly thinned, and the heels 

 lowered, they would be amply repaid in the comfort and usefulness of the 

 horse. 



ni-judged economy is another source of this disease. If the shoes of 

 one smith will, with ordinary work, last a little more than three weeks, 

 while another contrives to make his last six weeks, he is supposed to be 

 tlie better workman and the more honest man, and he gets the greater 

 part of the custom. His shoe is suffered to remain on during the whole time, 

 to the manifest injuiy of the feet, and that injury is materially increased by 

 the greater thickness and Aveight of tliesc shoes, and the tightness Avith 



