CHAPTEE YII. 



SHOEING. 



Before leaving the foot of the horse it will be 

 well to consider how our horses are shod, the 

 kind of shoes that are used, and the class of men 

 who make them ; whether they are the shoes best 

 adapted for the comfort and profitable working 

 of the various kinds of horses, and if any im- 

 provement is possible to be made, for if a good 

 system of shoeing is universally adopted we shall 

 have given the death-blow to nine-tenths of the 

 diseases of the foot of the horse, and the groom's 

 millennium will have arrived. It is a generally 

 acknowledged fact that large numbers of horses' 

 legs and feet are worn out before the animals 

 have arrived at a mature age, and it has almost 

 become a proverb that one horse could wear out 

 three sets of legs. This is a very unsatisfactory 

 state of things, the more so as nine-tenths of the 

 diseases of the foot of the horse are the result of 

 bad management in youth, and ignorance and 

 neglect in after-life. Nor is this to be wondered 

 at when we consider who our shoeing-smiths are, 

 and the qualifications that are considered neces- 

 sary for a man to shoe a horse. I do not think 

 that I shall exceed the truth when I say that 

 hundreds of men are working in large shops as 

 shoeing-smiths, who know nothing about the 



