SHOEING. 97 



Great Britain. The breadth was not, perhaps, considered a decided dis- 

 advantage, when roads were few and much marshy soil had to be crossed 

 in a day's journey. But if this peculiar form enabled a steed to walk 

 more securely on a soft surface, the suction, inseparable from such land, 

 must also have exposed the animal to the frequent loss of the appendage. 

 When regarding these unavoidable results, we can perceive the reasons 

 which have dictated all the subsequent alterations. The central opening 

 had been enlarged, in the expectation of thereby counteracting the suck- 

 ing effects attending the movements over a marshy country ; while the 

 nails had been increased in number, in the expectation of thus gaining 

 additional security. The fastenings had likewise been ranged round the 

 rim, so that these might be driven directly through the hardest part of, 

 and have longer hold upon, the most resistant portion of the horn. 



Such plates were at one time, no doubt, in general use throughout 

 Great Britain ; and illustrating whence they were derived, there may be 

 adduced a well-known fact. The race-horse is of almost pure Eastern 

 blood. The trainer's stable is a very conservative locality, into which 

 changes slowly enter, and where names are retained long after their ap- 

 plicability has ceased. A thorough-bred is spoken of to this day as 

 running in "plates;" although the contest is decided in shoes resembling 

 those worn by other animals, only of lighter make and of the highest 

 possible finish. 



The aspect of the old English shoe evidently suggests a resort to the 

 hammer; it also indicates that the introduction of regular roads had 

 began to compel the employment of a closer and harder species of metal 

 than heretofore had been esteemed necessary. No modern Nimrod dare, 

 however, essay to career across the best-drained portion of country on a 

 horse shod with such a shoe as that last represented. Before a second 

 field were entered he would anticipate a steed with bare feet. No cab- 

 man, however reckless, would take a quadruped on to the rank shod in 

 .such a fashion. Were an article of this form brought out now, no one 

 who knew anything of such matters would patronize the novelty. 

 Nevertheless, though it be deficient in all present requirements, it dis- 

 plays certain features, which have been preserved by the smith and 

 handed down from father to son until the supposed improvements have 

 reached the existing generation. 



The arrangement of the nails near to the outer edge, and the fixing of 

 them into the hard outer wall of the crust, are methods still followed, 

 though experience has demonstrated that such numerous bodies, driven 

 almost perpendicularly into a thin and a brittle substance, were better 

 calculated to break the hoof than likely to hold on that which it was 

 their single office to retain. The modern smith, moreover, does not 



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