170 HORSE-SHOEING. 



preserve his footing on slippery roads, becomes timid and unsafe 

 when they are worn down to the surface of the shoe. By their 

 form, and their projecting so much beyond the level of the plate, 

 they jar the limb ; expose it to twists and treads sometimes of a 

 grave character; induce shortening of the flexor tendons; and 

 until they have been considerably reduced, interfere with the 

 animal's action. They are also liable to cause the shoe to be torn 

 off, by getting caught between paving-stones ; while they produce 

 severe lacerations, should the horse wearing them happen to kick 

 another animal. This is more particularly observed among army 

 horses which have calkins on their hind shoes — and especially 

 when in camp or picketed. They also throw more strain upon 

 the nails and the hoof itself. Neither must it be forgotten 

 that they remove the frog from contact with the ground. 



One side of the shoe being higher than the other produces the 

 same results as follow when the hoof is unequal in this respect. 

 The hind limb is more exposed to this evil than the fore one, from 

 calkins being most frequently added to the hind shoes, and from 

 the fashion of having the inner branch thickened, but not suffi- 

 cient to compensate for the height of the calkin on the outer heel. 

 This inequality is productive of injury to the fetlock and hock 

 joints, and is doubtless not unfrequently the cause of that for- 

 midable disease of the latter — spavin. 



But even if the farrier has reason to apply shoes whose ground- 

 surface is not studded with calkins or any other kind of " catch," 

 he, in nearly every case of ordinary wear, puts on one which has 

 the whole of this surface perfectly plane, and not relieved through- 

 out its length or width by any thing, except perhaps the groove 

 around its outer circumference, in which the nail-holes are placed. 

 This wide, smooth surface is evidently adapted to facilitate slip- 



