670 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



or removed by tools, and it shows the workman at a 

 glance the bearing of the iron. The whole surface of 

 the shoe intended to be in contact with the horn should 

 be distinctly imprinted on the contour of the hoof, so as to 

 insure the closest and most accurate intimacy between 

 the two ; and this carbonized surface should not be inter- 

 fered with on any account, except by the rasp, which is 

 employed to remov^e any sharpness of the edge of the 

 crust that may have been caused in this fitting. No 

 harm can arise from this mode of adapting the shoe. 

 Usually a small portion of the margin of the wall has to 

 be removed to imbed the clip ; this is done with the 

 knife. 



By this hot-fitting, the shoe is made to fit the hoof; 

 with the cold-fitting, it is the contrary. It would be 

 departing from the object of the brief sketch I have 

 here laid down to describe how the shoe ought to fit 

 every foot ; suffice it to say, that it should be wide 

 enough at the quarters and heels to support the whole of 

 the crust, but yet not wide or long enough to endanger 

 the opposite limbs by striking them, or run the chance 

 of being torn off by the other feet treading upon it ; 

 and it should not impinge upon the frog, neither pre- 

 vent that organ from playing its part in the physiology of 

 the foot. 



The shoe, dressed round its edges with a file (my 

 shoes are usually made in a tool, and finished off with a 

 file on their concavity, especially towards the ' catch,' or 

 'sunk calkin'), is then nailed on. Every nail should pass 

 through sound horn, and a short thick hold of the wall is 

 better than a long thin one. A foot allowed to grow 



