OSMERS REMARKS ON SHOEING. 



S05 



feet inclined to the other extreme, whose heels are weak 

 and low, if the shoe be set somewhat short at the points of 

 the heel, such will, by degrees, improve and grow higher. 

 Yet an English farrier can never be prevailed on to be- 

 lieve that weak low heels will become stronger by leaving 

 them exposed to hard objects. But it must be expected 

 that horses with weak or diseased feet, who have been ac- 

 customed to go in long, broad shoes, will at first go very 

 lame in shoes which are either short or narrow. And 

 many that are lame of the shoer with various disorders in 

 their feet, would be cured by Lafosse's shoes, if the frog, 

 sole, and bars were not pared out. But ivhen those things 

 which are designed by the Divine artist as a natural de- 

 fence to the interior part, are cut away by the superior 

 wisdom of our earthly artists, why then, undoubtedly. La- 

 fosse's shoes will not do, for the horse requires some artificial 

 defence to supply the loss of the natural one. Now it is 

 the weight, unequal pressure, form and action of the iron 

 made use of to protect the foot when it is thus horribly 

 abridged by our. artists, that is productive of almost all the 

 evils incident to horses' feet.' These words of Mr Osmer 

 are as true and applicable at the present day as they were 

 more than a century ago. This writer also speaks of the 

 drawing-knife — a weapon quite as, if not more, destructive 



fig. 1S7 fig. iS8 



than the boutoir, both of which are here represented (figs. 

 187, 188). 



