THE horse's foot, AND HOW TO SHOE IT. 287 



little better than a solid plate of iron nailed to the 

 hoof, with a small circular hole cut out in the middle. 

 This is repeating history with a vengeance. These 

 shoes are not only wide, but thick, which makes them 

 even heavier than the Syrian shoe. This thickness is 

 required, as some say, in order to protect the foot from 

 jar. Mr. Miles favors this view, which is enough to 

 make one doubt his sanity. Fleming is certainly right 

 when he says that the flexible horn is the best modi- 

 fier of concussion; and that as the thickness of metal 

 increases, so does the jar. But the greatest objection 

 to a heavy shoe is to be found in the fact, that it puts 

 an unnatural and dangerous strain upon the muscles 

 and tendons of the limb bearing it. A French pro- 

 fessor (Bouley) made several years ago a curious es- 

 timate touching the muscular exhaustion and fatigue 

 resulting from the use of heavy shoes. I make the 

 following quotation : — 



" If, at the termination of a day's work, we calculate 

 the weight represented by the mass of heavy shoes that 

 a horse is condemned to carry at each step, we arrive 

 at a formidable array of figures, and in this way are able 

 to estimate the amount of force uselessly expended by 

 the animal in raising the shoes that surcharge his feet. 

 The calculation I have made possesses an eloquence 

 that dispenses with very long commentaries. Suppose 

 that the weight of a shoe is 1,000 grams : it is not 

 excessive to admit that a horse trots at the rate of one 

 step every second, or sixty steps a minute. In a 



