84 SHOEING. 



quick, yet with hold sufficient to confine the shoe thre*. 

 or four months. The points of the nails should be 

 formed into neat and small clinches, and should be 

 well driven up 



Some taste may be displayed in the rasping and 

 shaping the hoof, after the shoe is confined. When it 

 is left more sharp than flat around at the toe, it adds 

 much to its beauty and neat appearance. 



When a horse is well shod, if water is poured upon 

 the bottom of his foot, it will not pass between the 

 hoof and the shoe. A smith, who resided in Williams- 

 burg, in the year 1804, was in the habit of shoeing in 

 this exact and elegant style. Shoes for draft horses, 

 that have seldom occasion to go out of a walk, should 

 be heavy, strong, and with high heels, and pointed at 

 the toe with steel. 



Horse shoeing is what every worker of iron, who 

 has acquired the name of a blacksmith, pretends to be 

 well skilled in ; but there are few indeed in possession 

 of sufficient knowledge on that subject, to make it safe to 

 place under their care a horse of value, for the purpose 

 of being shod. To perform this operation correctly, 

 and without present or future injury, requires not only 

 good skill and judgment, but a thorough acquaintance 

 with the anatomy of a horse's foot, which is a know- 

 ledge but few of our blacksmiths are in possession of, 

 and is the cause of so many horses being rendered 

 useless. Almost all the diseases in the feet, are, more 

 or less, the result of bad shoeing, by wounding muscles, 

 veins, nerves, or arteries in this way. 



