AND ON SHOEING. 327 



who have kept them. I have also known the owners 

 of horses oblige a good smith, (much against his will) 

 to attend to the neatness and cleaning out or paring of 

 their horses' feet, and often insisting on light shoes with 

 fine fullering being applied, without ever giving the 

 least attention to the sort of feet the horses may happen 

 to have had. 



Theoretical knowledge is certainly very useful, I 

 allow, in teaching or explaining the principles of the 

 different arts and sciences ; and that neatness and uni- 

 formity in the erecting of a building are much to be 

 admired, I will also admit; but such rules can* seldom 

 be brought into practice, either in getting horses into 

 condition, or in shoeing them. That many gentlemen, 

 from practice, know very well how to ride across a 

 country, and that they may be tolerable judges of the 

 shape or make of a horse, and that they may occasion- 

 ally see some imperfections in them, I will readily con- 

 cede ; but to discover all the imperfections that may 

 at times be present in some horses, and which are often 

 the cause of unsoundness, requires the attention and 

 scrutinizing eye of men, who possess exclusive advan- 

 tages in that respect, the result of a long practical 

 experience. 



The plating of race-horses is often almost the last 

 thing done to them previously to their coming to post 

 — that is, when they are plated on the course. But as 

 this chapter has already run to an extreme length, and 

 as plating may be considered distinct from shoeing, I 

 shall de\ ote a separate chapter to it. 



