20 THE HACK OR HACKNEY WARRANTY. 



best shoes are made of hard, well-hammered iron, and the shoe for a road, or draught 

 horse particularly, should always be of substance sufficient to support his weight. Its 

 external surface should be flat, and by no means inclinable as formerly to the convex. 

 The length of the shoe should agree with that of the foot, but at no rate exceed or pro- 

 trude beyond the horse's heel. It would be well, for security's sake, and apparently 

 according to nature's destination, could our road horses bear the exposure of their 

 heels and frogs to the ground ; but as so extremely few are capable of it, every 

 attempt Ir.is failed to introduce the famous short shoe of the French farrier La 

 Fosse. The object is to place the horse upon a level and even bearing of shoe, 

 neither too thick of iron nor too light ; carefully fastened with moderately small 

 nails, and by a workman with the experience and the feeling to discover, whether 

 or not the shoe may have been placed, or a nail may have been driven, so as to 

 outrage the extreme sensibility of the animal in those parts. Shoes should be re- 

 moved in three weeks, and horses sent to grass, more particularly with respect to 

 thin and tender feet, should have narrow webbed and light shoes, to preserve the 

 walls of the hoof. 



In the PURCHASE and SALE of a horse, the warranty of sound purports that the 

 animal is neither blind, lame, broken-winded, nor rotten, nor at the instant, sub- 

 ject to any impending cause of such maladies. At Repositories and sales by auction 

 the conditions of sale are always that, such warranty should terminate in three days, 

 indeed, that is the usual time allowed in private bargains ; but in litigations the 

 juries have of late years assumed a discretionary power in the case, and it is held 

 in consequence that, no period of time will bar the return of a warranted horse, 

 proved to have been unsound at the time of warranty. A horse warranted quiet 

 must l>e neither restiff, kicker or biter, or a run-away. 





