42 HORSES AND ROADS. 



over them. Perhaps some of them may think it 

 worth while to pick up their horses' feet and ex- 

 amine them, and turn things over in their minds. 

 Some of them will admit that they have become 

 ' groovey ' to an extent that is inexcusable, especially 

 in TYien of science. Medical men are all masters of 

 comparative anatomy; and here is a good oppor- 

 tunity for them to bring it profitably into use. 



All modern authorities on the matter are of 

 opinion that most horseshoes are made too heavy ; 

 and when horses are shod by contract, or by the year, 

 their shoes are made heavier still. Youatt, not by 

 any means a modern authority, says that ' an ounce 

 or two in the weight of the shoe will sadly tell before 

 the end of a hard day's work.' The American trot- 

 ting horse, St. Julien, lately trotted a mile in 2 min. 

 12| sec, being half a second less than the best time 

 of Earns ; and we are told that his shoes only 

 weighed fifteen ounces each on the fore feet, and six 

 ounces on the hind ones. Earns, as was until lately 

 the custom with American trotters, wore very heavy 

 shoes ; is it not possible that Earns may have been 

 the better horse of the two, but that he was too 

 much assisted with iron by his friends? Besides the 

 weight of an ounce or two ' telling sadly before the 

 end of a day's work^^ there remains the evil that it 

 tells permanently upon the horse's legs. There is, 

 perhaps, no modern authority that has not been 

 explicit thereon; yet heavy shoes are still most 

 generally in use, in spite, also, of the old proverb, ' An 

 ounce at the heels tells more than a pound on the 



