AND HOW TO KEEP IT SOUND. 21 



exposed to, and which no ingenuity can avert, were not 

 sufficiently distressing to the horse, or vexatious in their con- 

 sequences to its owner. Seeing then that the shape of the 

 foot is in no way changed by the form of the shoe, both 

 wisdom and interest would prompt us to adopt that form 

 which possesses the greatest number of advantages with the 

 fewest disadvantages ; and such a form it shall now be my 

 endeavor to describe in detail. The shoe must, as we have 

 seen, possess substance enough to prevent its bending, and 

 width of web enough to ensure protection to the foot ; — the 

 thickness, like the width, of web, should continue precisely 

 the same from toe to heel,* and not, as is generally the case, 

 increase as it proceeds backwards, until at the heels it be- 

 comes fully doubled. f This is a great evil for many reasons, 

 and among others, that it throv/s the horse forwards upon the 

 toe, and causes him to strike it against every projection which 

 comes in its vvay. Now, as horses are quite sufficiently 

 prone to do this without the assistance of high-heeled shoes, 

 it should be our business to obviate it as much as possible ; 

 and I find this is best accomplished by keeping the heels of 

 an even thickness with the rest of the shoe, and turning up 

 the toe out of the line of wear,:!: thereby imparting to the toe 

 of a new shoe v/hen placed upon a flat surface, the same ele- 

 vation from the ground line as that of an old one. 



In doing this we only carry out in the shoe what nature 

 has already done in the foot ; she has arched the toe of the 

 coffin bone,§ to diminish the effect of a jar at the toe ; and 

 we do the same to the shoe, to lessen the cause of the jar. 

 The common practice is just the reverse of this ; it welds a 

 lump of steel into the toe, which not only increases its thick- 

 ness, and the number of obstacles that it necessarily encoun- 

 ters, but, being of a harder texture, is longer wearing down, 

 and consequently exposes the foot to the greatest amount of 

 concussion. Supposing a horse to wear his shoes so hard, 

 that they v/ill not last a month, — much beyond which, as 

 the foot will outgrow them, they had better not last, — then 

 steel the toe ; but still let it be turned up as much out of the 

 line of wear as possible. A small clip at the point of the 

 toejl is very desirable as preventing displacement of the shoe 

 backwards : it need not be driven up hard ; it is merely re- 

 quired as a check or stay. The shoe should be sufficiently 



* Page 59, fig. 14. t Page 58, fig. 13. t Page 48, fig. 2. 



4 Pago 49, fig. 4. II Page 51, fig. 7. 



