SHOEma 655 



quarters — the surface across the bottom of the foot — will be fairly 

 provided for from the extreme ends to the middle, which is commonly 

 left flat or hollow and weak ; tJie sheer will be assisted in avoiding this 

 defect by acquiring the habit of glancing down the foot, from heel to 

 toe on each side in parallel lines ; his eye will then be able to judge 

 whether he has secured the object on which I am laying stress — a full- 

 ness in the surface across the center of the foot. The center of the foot 

 is the region of the greatest breadth and depth of its arch ; on the pres- 

 ervation of its breadth and depth depend the strength of the arch and 

 of the foot itself, and the firmness, safety, and power of the horse's 

 action. 



" The third class of feet are those in which, by mismanagement, a 

 morbid accumulation of hoof places them out of form. Some of these 

 are not in this state because they have not been shod at regular inter- 

 vals, but because those who shod them have not known their art — how 

 to reduce the abundance of horn to due proportion in different parts of 

 the hoof. 



"There is a common saying, that in shoeing, 'the shoe should be 

 made to fit the foot, and not the foot to fit the shoe.' This hackneyed 

 expression, when closely examined, amounts to nonsense. The horse- 

 shoer, if he be an artist worthy of the art, is required to know the foot 

 so that he can with the greatest possible exactness and extent, econo- 

 mize its want of substance and enei^gy ; he must, like the sculptor with 

 his clay or marble, bring out the true figure from a mass of deformity. 

 That the over-reduced and weak hoofs ai-e tlie most numerous, is 

 granted ; but I have seen numerous bad cases of deformity and lame- 

 ness due to the excess of hoi-n in the wrong places. 



" One difference between the English mode of shoeing and that 

 adopted in all other countries in the world is, that we hold up the 

 horse's foot to work at it. I only incidentally allude to the fact, because 

 the origin of our custom is as much hidden by antiquity as the more 

 extended mode. It is that of holding the horse's foot and working at it, 

 to which I allude, while the continental farrier has the foot held while 

 he shoes it. This last is the chief difference which attacts the atten- 

 tion of travelers. In using the buttress, the rasp is superseded as well 

 as the drawing knife ; the latter altogether, and the former, a small, 

 fine rasp, employed only to smooth off the surface of the lower wall, as 

 the last act in the process. Together with the buttress, the continental 

 sheer uses a tool analagous to that which we formerly employed under 

 the name of toeing-knife ; but a modern continental sheer, if a good 

 workman, uses this, which in wrong hands would be very destructive, 

 with admirable effect. This foot-rounder — the literal translation of the 

 name of the instrument — is a straight steel blade, of about nine inches 

 in length by one and a half in breadth, and moderately sharp, by means 

 of which the hard margin of the wall of the hoof is cut off by light taps 

 of the hammer, while the instrument is held so as to regulate the quan- 

 tity to be detached. 



" The plan which I have given, which I adopt with the rasp, of tak- 

 ing the foot forward, was founded upon This method ; but when we 

 come to those hoofs where overgrowth and disproportion to an indefinite 



