474 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



on the form and manner of applying shoes that not 

 only depends the preservation of the feet, but also the 

 safety of the limbs and the harmony of movement. We 

 always find ourselves more active and nimble when we 

 wear easy shoes ; but a wide, long, and thick shoe will do 

 for horses what clogs do for us — render them heavy, 

 clumsy, and unsteady.' 



After giving a brief notice of the anatomy of the foot, 

 the necessity for the farrier to understand this, and also 

 the fact that the horse, in a natural condition, ought to 

 have the whole extent of its foot placed upon the super- 

 lices of the ground it covers, he refers to the defects of the 

 shoeing then in vogue, and as aptly as if he had lived in our 

 own day : ' As it is not possible to employ unshod horses 

 on paved roads or hard ground without running the risk 

 of destroying some of the parts just mentioned, we have 

 been compelled to shoe them ; but the actual method is 

 so injurious that, so far from preserving their feet, it con- 

 curs to their destruction in occasioning a number of 

 accidents, as I will demonstrate. 



' I. Long shoes, thick at the heels, never remain firmly 

 attached to the feet in consequence of their weight, and 

 break the clinches of the nails. 



' 2. They require proportionately large nails to retain 

 them, and these split the horn, or frequently their thick 

 stalks press against the sensitive laminae and sole, and cause 

 the horse to go lame. 



'3. Horses are liable to pull off these long shoes when 

 the hind-foot treads upon the heel of the fore-shoe, either 

 in walking, while standing by putting the one foot upon 

 the other, between two paving-stones in the pavement, be- 



