106 HORSES AND ROADS. 



horses with a cold-fitted shoe. It is not to be lost 

 sight of that nearly a score of these companies 

 employ each thousands of horses ; and yet lead- 

 ing authorities have pronounced opinions utterly 

 at variance with each other on the use of the shoe. 

 But doctors always have differed. The statement 

 that fifty cold-fitted shoes are lost to every hot 

 one, certainly could not be substantiated ; they 

 stand at no disadvantage at all in this respect ; the 

 nails hold better in horn that has not been rendered 

 brittle by scorching. The tramways have now been 

 using them for nearly two years, and that looks as 

 if they kept in their places pretty well. In Spain, 

 where cold shoeing is universal, and forges very wide 

 apart, shoes keep on until they wear out. 



Cold fitting by no means entails any necessity 

 for ' fitting the foot to the shoe.' The shoe, whilst 

 hot, is forged to the correct size and shape of the 

 foot. The paring of the crust to fit the flat surface 

 of the cold iron takes longer than burning it down 

 with a hot shoe, and the paring of the surface on 

 the bottom is the only ' fitting the foot to the shoe ' 

 that has to be done when the latter is of the correct 

 pattern. When it is not, hot and cold fitting stand 

 just equal. 



Another objection to the fancied advantage of 

 gaining such very close apposition by burning in, is 

 that the horse thus often gets shod too tightly, and 

 every one knows that this is injurious to the animal ; 

 although it is not every one that is fully alive to 

 the great amount of misery and disorder it entails. 



