74 TREATMENT OF HORSES 



perhaps, from the changing of saddles, may 

 have been bruised, and become sore; the irri- 

 tability of such a sore would be kept up from 

 the heat and friction of the clothing; but, by the 

 horse being turned stripped into a loose place to 

 rest, the causes which occasioned the back being 

 sore are removed, and the parts injured recover 

 of themselves; and of this most grooms are 

 aware, as they are also aware that the horse's 

 feet will be sufficiently grown, and that there will 

 be plenty of horn to nail the shoes to in the 

 spring. As regarded a horse's feet, this was 

 all a groom ever troubled himself about; nor 

 do I believe that smiths, in my juvenile days, 

 knew any thing more of the nature and com- 

 ponent parts of horses' feet than grooms them- 

 selves ; for, in their cleaning out horses' feet, they 

 cut away the horn, very injudiciously, from all 

 descriptions of feet, without even duly discrim- 

 inating, so as to leave the horn of a weak, deli- 

 cate foot untouched, or to remove a sufficient 

 portion of it from a very strong one, with a view 

 to aid, to a certain degree, the elasticity that 

 may be required in the latter. Neither were 

 smiths, at the time I have been alluding to, 

 too careful in the forging, fitting, or nailing on of 

 horses' shoes. Indeed, such things as regard the 



