724 



SHOEING. 



Fig. 568. — Lafosse's method of let 

 ting the iron into the hoof. 



sents it. I determined, therefore, to try on this particular horse a 

 shoe in some respects similar to those described, that I might see 

 whether it would alter the shape of his foot ; since it is said to make 

 ' the frog grow so that the hoof is nearly a circle,' which was the very 

 effect that in this case I wished to produce. I therefore ordered my 

 smith to make a shoe at my own forge in the form 1 generally use 

 (which will be hereafter described), with the following exceptions : 

 The web of it was to almost cover the sole, room being given to 

 admit a picker ; and as it proceeded to the heels, the web on each 

 side was to be continued as far as the cleft which separates the bars 

 from the frog. He was to make the ' fore part the thickest,' and 

 to hammer "it so thin at the heels that it would ' end in an edge,' 

 by w-hich a person of ordinary strength could easily twist it." 



" I own I apprehended that this 

 shoe, from being so thin at the heels, 

 would bend in diffei"ent places, and 

 thereby injure the foot. But as it 

 was constantly under my own eye, 

 I knew that if that cii'cumstance 

 should happen, the injury could not 

 be material, in the short time it would 

 be permitted to go unnoticed. But 

 this did not prove to be the case. Af- 

 ter the horse had worn this shoe a 

 day or two only, 1 found the action of the leg was more free than it 

 had ever been before ; for the bars with their covering touched the 

 ground ; the extremities of the web on each side, b}^ being so very 

 thin, having bent a little over them, but they were prevented from 

 injuring them by being extended to the cleft which separates the 

 bars from the frog. This pressure of the Aveb on the bars was an 

 assistance to them in the expansion of the quarters ; and the shoe 

 was kept so wide at the heels that the exterior parts of it could not 

 hurt him. This shoe therefore acted exactly conti'ary to other, 

 shoes, which, as I before mentioned, are generally an impediment 

 to the expansion of the heels, whereas this became an assistance 

 to it. 



" In three Aveeks I took off this shoe to examine the state of the 

 foot. His frog was found to be increased, and in a better condition 

 than I had before seen it. The same shoe was therefore replaced for 

 three weeks more, at the end of which time his foot had become 

 considerably larger and straighter. In a week or ten days more 

 the horse was to go thii-ty-six miles on a turnpike road. 



"Although this kind of shoe had succeeded so well in a riding- 

 horse, 1 had some doubts about vcnturingit on the road. However, 

 1 at last determined to risk it, and had another shoe put on exactly 

 the same pattern, in which he performed his journey without any 

 injury, so that I have ever since continued to adopt it, having 

 found it to answer beyond any expectation I had formed of it; for 

 that foot which was before smaller than the other, with the toe 

 turning out, has, by the use of this shoe, become of the same size, 



