14 ARTISTIC HORSE-SHOEING. 



As the work of the shoer is confined solely to the hoof it 

 is essential that he should understand its construction. It 

 consists first of the Wall or Crust, the Sole, Frog and 

 coronary Frog- Band. 



The Wall is that portion of the front and sides of the 

 foot from the coronet to the ground. It is through the wall 

 that the shoer drives his nails, and it is upon the wall that 

 the shoe rests. 



Fleming, a noted authority on horse-shoeing, says in his 

 description of the wall : *^ The inner face of its upper edge 

 is hollowed out in a somewhat wide concavity which 

 receives, or rather in which rests, the coronary cushion. 

 This concavity is chiefly remarkable for being pierced 

 everywhere by countless minute openings which penetrate 

 the substance of the wall to a considerable depth. Each of 

 these perforations receives one of the ' villi ' or minute tufts of 

 blood vessels already mentioned as prolonged from the face 

 of the membrane covering the interior of the foot. Belaw 

 this concavity, which receives a large share of the horse's 

 weight, the wall is of about equal thickness from top to 

 bottom. On the whole of its inner surface are ranged 

 thin, narrow, vertical, horny plates, in number correspond- 

 ing to the vascular laminae, between which they are so inti- 

 mately received or dove-tailed (a horny leaf between two 

 vascular ones) that in the living or flesh sides it is almost 

 impossible to disunite without tearing them. The inner 

 face of the lower margin is united in a solid manner to the 

 horny sole through the medium of a narrow band of soft, 

 light colored horn, situated l)et\veen the two, which we may 

 call the * white line' or ^zone.' " 



