258 THE PERFECT HORSE. 



arises an internal inflammation, which renders the foot 

 painful, and makes the horse go lame. 



" It ought to be always remembered, that the more 

 a horse's foot is pared, so the more do we expose it to 

 accidents. It is depriving it, in the first place, of a 

 defence that Nature has given it against the hard and 

 jpointed substances it encounters; and in the second 

 place, — and which is ctf the utmost advantage for both 

 horse and rider, — in not paring the sole, and only using 

 as much of a shoe as is necessary to protect the horn, 

 the animal will be no longer liable to slip on bad roads 

 in winter or summer, when they are vulgarly called 

 plomhe., as will be shown. 



"1. Causing a horse to walk on the frog, and partly 

 on the heel, the former is found to be rasped by the 

 friction it experiences on the earth and paved road, 

 and is pressed by the weight of the body into the little 

 cavities and interstices it meets. 



"2. By its flexibility, it takes the imprint and the 

 contour, so to speak, of the ground it comes into con- 

 tact with ; so that the foot rests on a greater number of 

 parts, which, mutually assisting each other, multiply the 

 points of support, and thereby give the animal more 

 adherence to the surface on which he moves. We may 

 even say that he acquires a kind of feeling in this part, 

 through its correspondence with the fleshy sole, and from 

 this to the tendon, — a feeling that I will not compare 

 with that we experience when we walk with naked 

 feet, but which is yet sufficient to warn him of the 



