70 THE HORSE AND ITS DISEASES. 



English also, but which are mostly borrowed from the 

 Prench. Feverthelese, when the celebrated La Fosse 

 began his career, the practice of this art was but clumsily 

 managed, and his well-known writings on this subject, 

 appear to have first paved the way for the improvement 

 that followed. 



La Fosse Shoe. 



La Fosse considered long heavy shoes as useless, and 

 liable to drag off, that they lessened the animal's points 

 of support, and that thick heel shoes were no assistance 

 to weak heeled hoofs ; he was hence led to recommend 

 what he called the half moon shoe, which was short, and 

 reached only to the middle of the foot. This method 

 was considered at the time as very ingenious, and his 

 treatise on the subject was translated into the English 

 language, both by Bracken and Bartlet, who each recom- 

 mended the plan it taught. 



But persons very often who try a new mode, fall into 

 one of three errors. They either enter on it with a 

 prejudiced mind, by which they are previously deter- 

 mined to find out only its defects, or they expect more 

 than can be performed, and hence are disappointed and 

 disgusted, or otherwise they embrace without prejudice 

 the new mode. This shoe, or one something similar to 

 it, wa^ also first adopted by Mr. Colman, but not being 

 found to answer, was very soon abandoned. 



But with all its merits and defects, the half moon 

 shoe was not La Fosse's invention, it had been used for 

 contracted feet more than a century before. 



The present mode of horse shoeing in France differs 

 very much from ours, as their shoes present no fullering, 

 but the heads of the nails which are square, are received 

 into a countersink ; these nails go round the toe, and 

 stand much more within the circumference of the shoe 

 than ours, which leaves a projecting rim beyond the foot. 

 Their shoes arc likewise not nailed so near the heels as 



