FIITING THE SHOE. 463 



nails will hold on a fore-shoe at any kind of work, in any coun- 

 try and at any pace. If a shoe is properly fitted to the foot, 

 and ftistened by five nails, nothing but the smith's pincers can 

 get it off. 



Having cut off the heels and opened the nail-holes, you must 

 next turn up a clip at the toe. Every shoe should have one at 

 the toe ; it keeps the shoe steady, and prevents its being forced 

 back. But you never should put one at the side ; for if it is 

 put on the inside, it prevents the hoof expanding ; and on the 

 outside it is worse than useless, for the nails there are quite suf- 

 ficient to keep the shoe from working across the foot, and the 

 clip will interfere with the placing of one of the nails, and de- 

 stroy more of the crust than two nails would do. 



Fitting the Shoe. — Tou must never forget that " fitting the 

 shoe " means making the shoe fit the foot, and not making the 

 foot fit the shoe, as I have often seen done. 



It is a bad plan to try to fit the whole of the shoe at once ; 

 it is much better and saves a great deal of trouble to fit the toe 

 first, then the quarters, and lastly the heels ; but, before you 

 begin to fit the toe, take a look at the old shoe, and see how 

 much of the toe of it is worn away, because just so much of the 

 new shoe should be turned away from the ground out of the line 

 of wear. 



We all know that horses go better and stumble less in old 

 shoes than they do in new ones ; and the reason why they do so 

 is because they have worn away the toe, and no longer jar the 

 foot by striking the toe against hard substances in the road. A 

 new shoe turned up at the toe is the same thing to a horse as 

 an old one worn down, but with this great difference to his 

 comfort — that he is easy upon the new one from the time it is 

 first put on, whereas he was never easy upon the old one until 

 he had worn the toe away. 



"When a horse wears his shoe hard at the toe, it is the cus- 

 tom of most smiths to weld a lump of steel on to it, to make 

 him longer in wearing it away ; but this only increases the jar to 

 his foot, while turning up the toe makes the shoe last quite as 

 long, and saves the horse from a great deal of unnecessary suf- 

 fering. A strong foot will bear the toe to be turned up a good 

 deal ; but a flat foot is always weak at the toe ; and will not 



