PKEPAEESTG THE FOOT. 457 



quires both care and thought. If the horse has a strong, up- 

 right foot, with plenty of horn, you should shorten the toe, 

 lower the heels and crust, and cut out the dead horn from the 

 sole, and also from the corners between the heels and the bars ; 

 the best way of doing this is to pare the bars down nearly even 

 with the sole, and then you can get at the dead horn in the cor- 

 ners more easily. The part of the bar which stands up above 

 the sole would have been worn away, or broken down, if the 

 shoe had not kept the hoof off the ground ; therefore you had 

 better always pare it down, but on no account ever cut any 

 thing away from the sides of the bars, or what is called " open 

 out the heels ; " and be sure that you never tough the frog with 

 a knife. Now remember that there are three things which you 

 must never do in paring out a foot ; you must never cut the 

 sides of the bars, or open out the heels, or pare the frog ; and I 

 will tell you why you mast never do them. 



The bars are placed where they are, to keep the heels from 

 closing in upon the frog ; and if you trim them by cutting their 

 sides, you weaken them, and they can no longer do it, and the 

 foot begins to contract. 



Opening out the heels does exactly the same thing, by 

 weakening the very parts which natm*e placed there to keep 

 the heels apart. Xow it takes some time to contract a horse's 

 foot so as to lame him, and, because the contraction comes on 

 by slow degrees, no one notices it, until the horse falls lame, 

 and then every one wonders what can have done it ; but very 

 few hit uj)on the right cause. 



The frog is a thick, springy cushion, whose chief use is to 

 protect a very important joint, called the navicular joint, and 

 it is covered by a thin layer of horn, to keep in the moisture ; 

 and every time you slice off any of the frog, you lay bare a 

 part that was never meant to be exposed to the air, and it 

 dries, and cracks, and forms rags, which are cut off at every 

 fresh shoeing, until the whole frog becomes as dry and hard 

 as a board; and the horse gets an incurable disease, called 

 " navicular disease ; " therefore I say, leave the frog alone ; it 

 will never grow too large, for, long before that would happen, 

 the outer covering will shell off, and a new homy covering will 



