29 



rapid evaporation of the moisture of the hoof, and causes 

 the horn to become dry, and brittle. 



I have detailed these experiments with a view of exposing 

 the groundless nature of the fear, that expects to cast a shoe 

 at every step, unless it be held to the foot by eight or nine 

 nails, driven liigh into the crust. If the presence of a nail 

 in the crust were a matter of no moment, and two or three 

 more, than are necessary, were merely useless, there woidd 

 be no great reason to interfere with this practice of makuig 

 " assurance double sm-e ;" but it is far otherwise ; the nails 

 separate tlie fibres of the horn, and they never by any chance 

 become united agam, but continue asunder and unclosed, until 

 by degrees they grow down with the rest of the hoof, and 

 are ultimately, after repeated shoeings, removed by the knife. 



If the clenches should happen to rise, which however they 

 never wiU do in a foot, that is properly shod, they must be 

 replaced without delay, as such rising imparts to the nails 

 a freedom of motion, which is sure to enlarge the size of the 

 holes ; and this miscliief is often increased by the violent 

 vsrrenching, which the shoe undergoes from side to side in the 

 process of removal by the smith : now as these holes cannot 

 possibly grow down, and be removed under three shoeings, 

 it will be found, that even with seven nails the crust must 

 always have twenty-one of these separations existing in it at 

 the same time ; and, as they are often from a variety of 

 causes extended into each other, they necessarily keep the 

 horn in a brittle, unhealthy state, and materially interfere 

 Avith the security of the future nail hold. Unluckily the 

 common practice under such circumstances is to increase the 



