UNSHOD HORSES FREE FROM FOOT DISEASES. 89 



down to the seaboard, and in some cases making a 

 journey of several hundreds of miles, and they load 

 back again ; yet they never wear out their hoofs. 

 The writer speaks from experience ; for it has been 

 his lot to own and work hundreds of animals at a 

 time in more than one of these countries ; and if 

 shoeing could have helped him in the slightest he 

 would most certainly have resorted to it. No man 

 could see four or five hundred animals incapacitated 

 from work without seeking such a simple remedy; 

 but it was never wanted, and many years of expe- 

 rience of this kind have naturally convinced him 

 that horses work better, and can travel further, 

 without shoes than with them. 



Nor is this all. Unshod horses enjoy almost a 

 total immunity from diseases of the feet and legs. 

 Side-bones, sandcrack, seedy toe, ringbone, thrush, 

 and quittor were never seen in the writer's stables. 

 Spavins, curbs, splints, and windgalls were very 

 rare. Thrush is effectually cured by removing the 

 shoe from any horse that suffers from it. Professor 

 Coleman said that ' the frog must have pressure, or 

 become diseased ; ' and ]Mr. Douglas says that ' con- 

 traction prevents a supply of blood from reaching 

 the sensitive frog that produces the insensible 

 frog ; and so, becoming useless for the purpose 

 nature intended it, instead of coming to horn it 

 oozes out a noxious-smelling fluid.' The unshod 

 horse has frog pressure ; so, unless he should stand 

 upon rotten litter, thrush he cannot get. Quittor 

 is caused by pricking with a nail, or by the 



