236 HOW TO SHOE A HORSE. 



as formerly, I withdrew another nail from each shoe, leav- 

 ing only five in the fore shoes and six in the hind. I 

 found, however, that six nails would not retain the hind 

 shoe of a carriage-horse, without allowing it sometimes to 

 shift ; so I returned to seven in the hind shoes, and have 

 contirmed to employ that number ever since : but five have 

 retained all the fore shoes as firmly during the whole of 

 the last year and a half, as six had previously done. 



I have luv^ariably directed and superintended the whole 

 operation of shoeing during these experiments ; and have 

 always been very careful to mark that the nails were not 

 driven high up in the crust, but brought out as soon as 

 possible ; and that they were very lightly driven up 

 before the clinches were turned down, and not, as is gene- 

 rally the case, forced up with all the power that the smith 

 can bring to bear upon them with his hammer. 



The clinches should not be rasped away too fine, but 

 turned down broad and firm. The practice of rasping the 

 whole surface of the hoof after the clinches have been 

 turned down, should never be permitted ; it destroys the 

 covering provided by nature as a protection against the 

 too rapid evaporation of the moisture of the hoof, and 

 causes the horn to become dry and brittle. 



Two of the horses alluded to above, worked for some 

 time with only four nails in their fore shoes. 



I have detailed these experiments with a view to expose 

 the groundless nature of the fear that expects to cast a shoe 

 at every step, unless it be held to the foot by eight or nine 

 nails, driven high into the crust. If the presence of a nail 

 in the crust were a matter of no moment, and two or three 

 more tlian are necessary were merely useless, there would 

 be no great reason to interfere with this practice of making 

 "assurance doubly sure;" but it is far otherwise; — the 

 nails separate the fibres of the horn, and they never by 



