SHOEING. 



627 



Not five horses in a hundred, shod a few years by the system 

 in general use, have sound, healthy feet. Contraction and its 

 consequences, — corns, 

 quarter-cracks, thick- 

 eninsf of lateral car- 

 tilasres, inflammation 

 and ulceration of the 

 navicular bone and 

 coffin joint, with other 

 changes of structure 

 that* make the horse 

 liable to soreness or in- 

 curable lameness, are 

 the rule ; while horses 

 having sound, healthy 

 feet, are the excep- 

 tions. The loss to the 

 people of the country 

 from this cause — ig- 

 norant, bad shoeing — 

 is enormous, and could, 

 except in some serious cases, be entirely prevented or cured by 

 good shoeing and proper treatment. 



This being true, it is of the greatest importance, not only as a 

 matter of humanity to horses, but economy to owners, that such 

 knowledge as will prevent or overcome these serious causes of in- 

 jury and loss, be made available; and this, as explained, I have 

 made a special effort to do in this chapter. It is idle to assume 

 that shoeing-smiths would intentionally spoil or injure the feet; 

 that they are not willing to learn or heed the teachings of reason. 

 While there are a great many who are unpardonably stupid and 

 ignorant, and who, in the blindness of their prejudices, are not 

 willing to learn ; yet, as a class, the writer never found any peo- 



FiG. 423. — Foot of a five-year-old horse that 

 had never been shod.* 



* Cuts Nos. 423 to 428 were copied from Bracy Clark's treatise on shoeing, 

 published in 1809. No. 433 is an illustration of the foot of a five-year-old horse 

 which had never been shod. The others in the order as placed and explained, show- 

 ing the atrophied, contracted condition of the heels and quarters after shoeing. These 

 are followed by drawings from casts of colts' feet made by the author. In the parj 

 on contraction, the causes and proper treatment will be found explained. 



