UNILATERAL SHOEING. 543 



and Bracy Clark : frog-pressure shoes, shoes with one or 

 more joints, shoes in segments attached to a leather sole, 

 shoes entirely of leather, shoes without nails to fasten on 

 the foot like a sandal, and shoes in halves, as if for the 

 cloven foot of an ox. In fact, the ingenuity of man 

 appears to have been racked to accommodate this alter- 

 nate opening and closing of the heels, and the ascent and 

 descent of the sole ; all the while the lower face of the 

 hoof was robbed of its protection, and consequently made 

 to undergo these very changes attributed to the iron plate 

 and nails. The amount of torture inflicted by these well- 

 meaning, but mistaken men has been immense — the loss 

 inestimable. 



One of the many modes of promoting expansion pro- 

 posed and practised many years ago, was that of Mr 

 Turner, and which was designated ' unilateral,' because of 

 the nails being limited to the outside and toe of the shoe, 

 leaving the inside to expand and contract ad libitum. It 

 was but the revival of a method practised centuries ago 

 in certain cases, in this country and in France, where it 

 was known as xho. fer-rwe a la Turqiie. For a time this 

 new fashion had a tolerable run, but somehow it soon 

 began to decline, as the maladies it was intended to pre- 

 vent were as prevalent as ever, the sole and frog-paring 

 being still in a flourishing condition. 



It would serve no useful purpose to enumerate all the 

 books that have been written in England in this century 

 on the subject of farriery, or to describe all the different 

 shoes and diff^erent methods invented, reinvented, and 

 borrowed without acknowledgment. Machine-made shoes 

 of various patterns have been largely tried, and have 



