136 HORSE-SHOES, ETC. 



always be quite distinct from the bearing surface. Shoes for 

 liorses with very concave soles require little seating, and it is 

 only necessary to carefully round off the inner margin. This is 

 usually the case in hind shoes (fig. 87). 



The object of this rounding ofl' is to prevent pressure by the 

 shoe against the sole. The seating of the hoof surface of front 

 shoes need not be deep ; it is sufficient if it amount to, say, -| 

 of an incli ; its width varies from a quarter up to a half the width 

 of the entire upper surface. A greater amount of seating than 

 this is, in shoes for sound hoofs, rather injurious than useful. 

 It is, however, absolutely necessary to see that the inner upper 

 edge of the shoe is rounded ofl'. As a matter of fact, in 

 many districts shoes having an absolutely level hoof surface 

 are used, though the ground surface is recessed or deepened in 

 some other way. This shows that, if the paring of the foot 

 and the otlier details of shoeing be carefully performed, no 

 injury results. Shoes with recessed or dished ground surface 

 are not, as is often supposed, at all new. They were known 

 at the beginning of the present century (see A Neiv System 

 of Shoeing Horses, by J. Goodwin, London, 1820). Many 

 different forms of shoe with recessed ^roimd surfaces exist. 



The under or ground surface of the shoe exhibits the nail 

 holes, with or without fullering. The fullering, or nail furrow, 

 is a groove near the outer border of the shoe, through which 

 the nail holes are stamped ; sometimes it extends from one 

 heel to the other, sometimes it is interrupted. In the latter 

 case, the toe and ^ to £ of an inch of the heels are plain. The 

 fuller should extend through at least two-thirds of the thick- 

 ness of the iron, which will, therefore, also determine its 

 breadth (tig. 88, c). To ensure proper stamping of the nail holes 

 both walls of the fuller must be oblique. When the inner 

 wall is perpendicular (fig. 89, 1) to the surface of the shoe the 

 nail holes are apt to point inwards. The outer border of the 

 fuller should never be sharp, and, considering the deeper posi- 

 tion of the nail holes at the toe, must be somewhat wider 

 towards the front. Although fullering is not absolutely 

 necessary, as horses work very well in stamped shoes, yet it 

 is certainly a great advantage, for, firstly, it lessens the weight 

 of the shoe ; secondly, on account of its roughening the ground 

 surface, it somewhat diminishes slipping ; thirdly, it gives the 



