HOW TO KNOW HEM. 63 



as many cases as some imagine, springs so much from 

 the imperfect formation of the hock as from scrofulous 

 tendencies in the animal, which render him constitution- 

 ally exposed to joint and bone disease ; and so it happens 

 that no size and symmetry of the hock can ever be 

 regarded as an infallible protection from the spavin. 

 Another cause of spavin, and perhaps the greatest, 

 especially in America, is injudicious shoeing. If a horse, 

 for instance, brushes, the smith will say, "Oh, I can cure 

 him of that ! " and so indeed he can, and without the 

 employment of any marvellous amount of wisdom 

 either. All that he needs to do is to cause the shoe to 

 be thicker on one side of the heel than the other, and 

 the horse will not brush ; but this construction of the 

 shoe, it should be remembered, causes so much more 

 weight to be thrown upon one part of the hock-joint 

 than another, that disease is pretty sure to be the result. 

 "I wish," says an intelligent writer, "that these smiths 

 had the one side of their boot raised an inch higher than 

 the other in order that they might enjoy the same pleasure 

 that they have conferred upon the horse. They would 

 then, especially if compelled to run and jump, have an 

 opportunity of knowing how long their ankle and knee 

 joints would continue sound." The last cause of spavin 

 I shall mention, and perhaps the most frequent, is the 

 smallness of the shank-bone at its junction with 

 the hock. The hock has not sufficient surface to rest 

 upon. The force of the concussion to which it is 

 exposed is not sufficiently distributed ; and spavin is the 



