SHOEING. 541 



the foot, and detects any little elevations by the deep color 

 of the burned horn. This practice has been much inveighed 

 against, but it is the abuse and not the use of the thing 

 which is to be condemned. If the shoe is not too hot, nor 

 held too long on the foot, an accuracy of adjustment is thus 

 obtained which the knife would be long in producing, or 

 would not produce at all. If, however, the shoe is made to 

 burn its way to its seat, with little or no previous prepara- 

 tion of the foot, the heat must be injurious both to the sen- 

 sible and insensible parts of the foot. 



"The heels of the shoe should be examined as to their 

 proper width. Whatever is the custom of shoeing the horses 

 of dealers, and the too prevalent practice in the metropolis 

 of giving the foot an open appearance, although the poste- 

 rior part of it is thereby exposed to injury, nothing is more 

 certain than that, in the horse destined for road-work, the 

 heels, and particularly the seat of corns, can scarcely be too 

 well covered. Part of the shoe projecting externally can be 

 of no possible good, but will prove an occasional source of 

 mischief, and especially in a heavy country. A shoe the web 

 of which projects inward so far as it can without touching the 

 frog, affords protection to the angle between the bars and crust. 



" Of the manner of attaching the shoe to the foot the own^r 

 can scarcely be a competent judge ; he can only take care that 

 the shoe itself shall not be heavier than the work requires; 

 that for work a little hard the shoe shall still be light, with 

 a bit of steel welded into the toe ; that the nails shall be as 

 small and as few and as far from the heels as may be con- 

 sistent with the security of the shoe ; and that for light work, 

 at least, the shoe shall not be driven on so closely and firmly 

 as is often done, nor the points of the nails be brought out 

 so high up as is generally practiced. 



CALKINS. 



" There are few cases in which the use of calkins (a turning 

 up or elevation of the heel) can be admissible in the fore-feet, 

 except in frosty weather, when it may, in some degree, pre- 



'H-' 



