156 Management and Treatment of the Horse. 



should be removed but the ragged and detached 

 portions. ... It is intended that the shoe should 

 rest partly on the heel and partly on the bar of 

 the foot, consequently the bars should be allowed 

 to remain nearly in their original condition from 

 their first inflection, and extending down to the 

 frog. From what we have shown it will be suffi.- 

 ciently evident that some skill is required to make 

 this shoe, and properly fit and put on, yet no skill 

 is required to cut and pare the horse's foot, that 

 being a part of the smith's performance which is 

 best left undone. ..." Free Lance," in his 

 writings, strongly advocates horses going without 

 shoes of any kind, and tells us that the Arabs 

 never shoe their horses, yet they perform long 

 journeys without injury to the feet. He also 

 tells us that he has seen thousands of unshod 

 horses bringing cotton some three hundred miles 

 up the country in South America over bad roads, 

 and not one per cent, ever went lame or became 

 foot-sore. ''Free Lance" evidently is labouring 

 under a mistake as regards the Arab and his 

 horses, unless, indeed, they have much altered 

 since the author was in their country ; they do 

 not shoe their horses unless they are going long 

 journeys, then they are not shod with iron, owing 

 to the difficulty of obtaining that metal; but they 

 make a shoe of raw-hide which they nail to the 

 feet ; this shoe will wear for a week or ten days, 

 quite long enough to enable them to perform a 

 long journey. The pack horses again in South 

 America are certainly driven in droves to the 

 Coast, with about one hundredweight of cotton 



