6i2 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



covering for the feet, the weight each can carry is but 

 small, the price of merchandise must be proportionally 

 high, while the risks incurred are greater. If it be true 

 that commerce is increased in proportion as means are 

 afforded for facilitating communication between different 

 parts of the same country, or between kingdoms, then 

 it must be as true that nail-shoeing has conferred a 

 benefit on mankind of no mean character. For whenever 

 it had been ascertained that carriages could be con- 

 stantly made serviceable in conveying merchandise for 

 long distances by horse-power, and without inflicting any 

 injury on the horses, then commercial relations became 

 vastly extended : roads of every construction, not so 

 much required to preserve the hoofs as to aid the wheels, 

 began to be thrown open everywhere, and the arts and 

 manufactures received a potent stimulus, and one quite 

 as beneficial, if we consider the age, as railways and 

 steam-ships have conferred in modern days. 



Since the realization of the increased power which 

 shoeing conferred on the horse species, a wonderful result 

 appears in the increase of varieties or breeds to meet the 

 many requirements sought for in horses for draught or 

 riding. 



The horse, in the earlier periods of its domestication, 

 and in nearly every country, may be supposed to have had 

 a tolerable uniformity of proportion adapted to the pur- 

 poses for which it was trained — those of carrying lightly 

 equipped troops, and drawing small chariots containing 

 few people. The enterprise of Western nations, however, 

 and the skill they have for so many centuries shown in 

 modifying or adapting the natural capabilities of the 



