38 ARTISTIC HORSE-SHOEING. 



FITTING THE SHOE TO THE FOOT. 



This is one of the most important points in horse-shoeing. 

 In traveling- about giving instruction to all classes of 

 people, I have found a great man}^ so-called horse-shoers 

 who had not worked at the ti-ade more than six months 

 perhaps. Often as quick as a man gets so that he can 

 dress a foot or fit up a shoe he calls himself a good horse- 

 shoer and will start a shop. In order to secure work it is 

 necessary for such a man to put prices down very low. In 

 my experience I have found that tAvo-thirds of the crippled 

 horses have been made so by just such horse-shoers as I 

 have described above. I call them horse-shoers for con- 

 venience only. Some of them will never be horse-shoers. 

 Nevertheless they think when they put a shoe on, it is as 

 good work as anybod^^ can do, and usually such men are 

 very much averse to learning how to shoe. I commenced 

 helping my father at the forge when only eleven 3^ears old 

 and have worked at the trade ever since, and I think it safe 

 to say that I shod horses fully twenty years before I really 

 knew an^^thing about it. Now somebod^^ will ask, how it is 

 possible that you could work so long without knowing 

 anything about horse-shoing\ It is simply because I knew 

 it all in the first place. I knew so much that I did not 

 want to be told anything, and so went on year after year 

 in the same old rut doing more harm than good all the 

 time. 



After I had been compelled to pay for three valuable 

 horses I spoilt by bad shoeing, it occurred to me I did not 

 know as much as I thought I did. Then I invested every 



