78 THE HORSE. 



SECTION XIV. — Striking and wounding the 



Legs. 



On this point I do not entirely agree with Mr. Good- 

 win, on whose authority, in most other respects, I 

 rely. He observes (p. 274), " It is evident that 

 horses which go very near must be more likely to 

 strike the shoe against the other leg." In another 

 place he seems to think that the mischief is done by 

 the toe alone. Now, in the whole course of my ex- 

 perience, I have remarked, that the defect does not 

 originate in the horse " going near," but in the 

 crooked position of the pasterns, whence the toes, 

 instead of pointing straight, turn either outward or 

 inward ; in the first position the horse cutting with 

 his heel, in the other with his toe. With this defect 

 I have known horses cut themselves, though they 

 went uncommonly wide before. Osmer recommended 

 stocks, in which daily to confine the feet of colts 

 having this defect, with the view of bringino; their 



O ' so 



toes, by degrees, to the right line ; but I have never 

 heard of the experiment, and I deposit it in my 

 knowledge-box, cheek by jowl with the forcible ex- 

 pansion of narrow heels. Of the two, however, I 

 prefer the stocks, on the ground of our success in 

 the nursery and the army, in both which we succeed 

 in convincing toes of the expediency of their being 

 turned out. 



The above writer (Goodwin) continues, " I have 

 always observed that a plain shoe, with the inside 

 edge bevelled, or feather-edged, when set on even 

 and smoothly rounded with the crust, to be the most 



