HORSE-SHOEING. 171 



ping on smooth pavements, or even on grass or clay land. 



Size.— Besides constructing the shoe of a faulty shape, a very 

 common practice is to apply one smaller than the actual contour 

 of the ground-surface of the hoof. This is a grave error, and in 

 all probability arises from the desire to make the horse's foot 

 look neat, and to produce fine work; just as the maker of shoes 

 for the human foot thinks it the perfection of workmanship to 

 squeeze it into the smallest possible space. In the horse, however, 

 small shoes are more fruitful of lameness and chronic deformity 

 than even the worst-shaped cramped coverings can be for the 

 human organ, as the horse is compelled to wear his tight plates 

 day and night, and must accomplish all kinds of severe labor in 

 them ; while man can relieve himself of his torturing, uncom- 

 fortable boots for at least some hours out of the twenty-four. 



We shall allude to the evils of this stupid practice hereafter, 

 in the meantime it may be sufficient to point out, that in select- 

 ing and supplying a shoe smaller than the circumference of the 

 hoof, we are depriving the foot and limb of a portion of their 

 stability and weight-bearing surface. The limb is, in reality, a 

 column of support for the body, and the hoof is the base of this 

 column. This base is very much wider than any other portion, 

 and only commences at the foot, which gradually widens towards 

 the ground, so as to make it still more expanded and efficient. 

 To diminish this is to frustrate Nature's mode of affording 

 security and ease to the limb, and consequently to do it harm. 



The above are only some of the more prominent evils attendant 

 on the present method ot constructing and shaping the horse's 

 shoe ; others, such as making it of bad material, altogether unlike 

 the outline of the hoof, etc., we will glance at presently. We 

 have only now to consider what has been for very many years the 

 aim of those who, overlooking the real injury done to the foot by 

 the barbarous fashion of paring and rasping, imagined the chief, 



