46 THE HORSE. 



case of a luxuriant growth of horn, whilst the horse 

 is in work and his shoes still good. In course, the 

 excrescence must be pared around. The generality 

 of our nags, however, have but little occasion for par- 

 ing their soles or frogs, excepting from loose and scaly 

 excrescences. The crust of the deep or ass-shaped 

 hoofs of Barbs and some other foreign horses, and of 

 some bred upon the calcareous and hilly soils of a part 

 of this country, in North Wales, for example, must be 

 occasionally taken down, in order if possible to make 

 their wiry heels spread, and encourage the growth of 

 their frogs, if peradventure nature may have allowed 

 them any frogs beyond nominal ones. I formerly 

 heard much of the obduracy and lastingness of this 

 kind of hoof, from the well known Mr. Bakewell and 

 others, but had never the good fortune to experience 

 it; the few of them which I have possessed, being 

 extremely liable to inflammation of the feet, as I 

 supposed affecting the internal structure, thence quite 

 unfit for much road work. 



My choice, whenever I could light upon it, w r as 

 the dark, shining hoof, which would cut solid and 

 tough ; an open heel, the binders equally tough, and 

 the frog dry, but of good and growing substance. 

 Briefly, a hoof of whole colour, and that by no means 

 of a light colour ; dry but not brittle, of uneven surface 

 or wrinkled, and of size well adapted to the size of 

 the horse. The coronet or coronary ring, surmount- 

 ing the hoof, being large and swelling is a sign of a 

 defective foot. 



Doubtless, shoeing the horse is a necessary evil, 

 and all hoofs are injured more or less by it:- but the 



