CAN SHOE AT HOME. 79 



1 55. — With this system of di-awing the nails, any strong and 

 supple man, with common sense, can nail on a shoe without any 

 previous experience, or without runniui;- tiie sliiihtest risk of 

 touching- the very sensitive ((uick. None but a drunken or 

 wantonly brutal man will ever drive a nail to the quick and 

 leave it there, as the horse will tell them plainly enough if a nail 

 actually touches the quick, but with the system of driving nails 

 so high up, the quick is often pricked and the nail instantly 

 withdrawn, or what is a great deal worse, a nail is often so close 

 to the quick that it is painful without actually laming the horse, 

 though it sometimes causes him to limp a day or two after being 

 shod. This should always be carefully watched, and the first 

 suspicious symptom attended to ; but, as we have shown, there is 

 nothing to be gained by running any risk in the matter, so that 

 no nail should be allowed to go anywhere near the quick. 



156. — Pointing the old fashioned home-made nails with a 

 hammer, used to be the only difficult art in shoeing, but nails 

 can now be purchased with points that require no hammering. 

 Care should be taken to keep them bright, by keeping them from 

 damp atmospheric influence, as the slightest rust will make them 

 drive badly. The one-sided chisel point of these nails will bring 

 them out of the hoof with a shorter hold than a beginner is likely 

 to calculate on, but he will soon learn what direction to give 

 them to get hold enough. He will find that he wants to jwint 

 them more inwards at the toe than he will do near the heel, 

 both because of the different shape of the hoof, and because 

 whilst the horn that the nail meets at the toe is almost equally 

 hard on both sides, and therefore effectually acts on the bevelled 

 point, to direct the nail outwards, the horn at the heel is much 

 softer inside than out, and consequently will not curve the chisel- 

 pointed nail so rapidly and certainly outwards. 



157. — When the nails have been driven, a slight notch may 

 be filed in the hoof, under the point at which each nail has come 

 out, to clinch when the nail is turned down. The clinch may 

 be filed down almost level with the hoof, but this must be done 

 without recklessly filing away the enamel covering of the hoof, 

 which is of great importance to protect it from the action of 



