no SHOEING. 



may receive it as an unjust accusation when he is told that high calkins 

 are to blame for the spread of such a state of disease. 



The author, probably, has said enough about the evils attendant on 

 the present system of shoeing; and, although the subject is far from 

 • exhausted, he yields to the reader's desire of learning what the writer 

 would substitute in the place of that which causes the numerous evils 

 he has denounced. The reformer's office is but half performed when the 

 bad is exposed. The most difficult part remains to be discharged — that 

 of conceiving and of declaring the good which shall fill the void left by 

 the necessary destruction of the evil. 



The author is conscious that, after having condemned so much, he has 

 placed himself under an obligation to adduce that which he believes to 

 be grounded on right principles. When doing this, the mighty question 

 of expense is entirely ignored. It is his office to make known the 

 remedy; he has no concern with the cost of its application. Gentlemen, 

 however, though exacting the utmost service from the horse, generally 

 begrudge the price of the iron which must be ground down while the 

 patient quadruped is laboring for its task-master's benefit. With too 

 many proprietors the cheapest is the best form of shoe. The temptation 

 of saving a few pence frequently sways the judgment in favor of some 

 particular article. The welfare and the life of earth's most beautiful 

 ornament is, by too many human beings, reduced to a money considera- 

 tion. So thoroughly is this fact appreciated that, when a new shoe is 

 submitted to the notice of the forge, its chances of success are always 

 judged by the charge for which it can be manufactured, apart from the 

 merits of the invention. 



There is, however, a custom general in the forge which has been dis- 

 carded by other trades. The linen-draper tickets up the goods in which 

 he deals ; and, be the customer rich or poor, the price is known to both. 

 The smith, however, will charge the tradesman three shillings and six- 

 pence, or four shillings, the set, for a horse's shoes ; while the person of 

 independent property, or in the upper sphere of life, he makes pay five 

 shillings for the self-same article. This rule can be based on no principle 

 of fair dealing, and it needs only to be exposed to be immediately over- 

 thrown. Yet, even up to the present time, so exploded and so anti- 

 quated a rule of trade prevails in the forge, where the addition of an 

 extra sixpence is unjustly made to turn the scale of merit. 



However, the author has here nothing to do with such considerations. 

 His duty is confined to freely stating his conscientious convictions, and 

 to acknowledging the reader as the appointed judge of the soundness or 

 unsoundness of his conclusions. Impressed with such a belief, the fol- 

 lowing form of shoe is submitted to the public. It is, by the writer, 



