CHAPTER VII] . 



SHOEING. 



111. — In a country like Great Britain, wheie the roads are 

 generally metalled, shoeing the horse that has to travel on such 

 roads may be regarded as a necessary evil. A\'here he can do 

 most of his work in fields, over grass plains, or on roads not 

 covered with stones or flints, a good hoof will lie far better left 

 without any additional weight, and without being nailed to any 

 unyielding substance. The springiness of the horse is so much 

 lessened by even the very best shoes, as to make the difference 

 quite perceptible to the rider, notwithstanding the many springs 

 that interfere between his seat and the horse's foot. 



14:2. — There is a very great difference in natural hoofs. A 

 few strong, tough, concave hoots, grown on dry hard ground, 

 will stand almost any roads without shoes ; others grown on soft 

 rich swamps, without frequent cutting back, are so thin, weak, 

 and flat, and have such unsound frogs, that they will stand no 

 amount of work on any roads unshod. Few horses can do much 

 without shoes after they have been accustomed to them for any 

 length of time, especially if the frogs and bars of their feet have 

 been once destroyed, as they are often with a smith's knife. 

 The flesh attached to the hoof, like that attached to the human 

 nail, is of an extremely sensitive character, and although it has 

 been protected by nature with a thick insensible hoof, that hoof 

 is not so capable of adapting itself to a greatly diifering amount 

 of wear and tear as the skin of the human hand or foot, whilst 

 the larger surface of extremely sensitive laminae demands a much 

 m<jre impenetrable covering. Thus in a bog, or on any soft 

 gritless land, the hoof will sometimes grow so long as to 

 quite impede the horse's motion, but when constantly worked 



