THE horse's rescue. 147 



When this old dried shell is removed, and new growth 

 of hoof takes place, the old shell kept spreading at 

 the bottom so as to allow the new to grow natural, yon 

 will find, if jou trj^ it, if you keep the structure- of 

 the foot in harmony of action, you have removed the 

 ' cause of more suffering than you ever thought of 

 There are some cases I have ?:een that are incurable ; 

 some of long standing are quite easily cured ; some of 

 short standing are hard to cuie; all, or nearly all, are 

 caused by ironing their feet, and ignorance k is the 

 great cause of all this suffering the poor horse has to 

 endure. 



Keader, I do not want vou to understand bv this ex- 

 periment that there is no use in washing these horses' 

 legs with warm water and packing their feet while they 

 are going through this change. I have already writ- 

 ten that this treatment holds good, and always will, 

 and you must always take care of their feet. After 

 the fever is gone they do not want much packing, 

 neither do they want much soaking. After they have 

 got back on their base they want work in mud, snow, 

 water; that's what they want. Standing in the barn 

 will spoil the best horse ever was, and driving him 

 when he is out of harmony of action will do the 



same. 



Here is another experiment. I prepared one of 

 these contracted feet and let the sole down to its nat- 

 ural place. It required five-eighths of an inch to do 

 this on this foot. I at first measured all of the feet 

 before I spread. I do not now, unless I want to know 

 how much I have spread the foot, or to show others', 

 the sole is the guide in raising and lowering if it is 



