NOTES ON SHOEING OF HORSES. 19 



Lameness may be, and, indeed, frequently is, 

 the consequence of injuries arising in this way. No 

 complaint is more common than that horses go 

 tender after shoeing. Though, of course, this may 

 result from pricks, badly-fitting shoes, or various 

 other causes, yet it is far more often traceable to 

 the feet being " well pared out," a feat on which 

 most farriers rather pride themselves. 



The nature, too, of the stopping in ordinary use 

 is objectionable. Cow-dung is dirty, and apt to 

 corrode the frog ; and clay is hable to get dry and 

 hard before it is removed. Grooms also sometimes 

 neglect to remove the stopping from the feet before 

 the horse goes to exercise. Such neglect is the 

 ready cause of lameness. 



22. Leather is sometimes used as a protection Leather. 

 to the sole, but it is not needed, unless nature's 

 leather, that is, the sole itself has been pared away. 



Though we object to the use of leather as a 

 substitute for the real sole, yet there are cases of 

 injury to the sole from pricks in shoeing, or from 

 accidentaUy picking up a nail, &c., in which it is 

 of value ; but its use in these cases will be explained 

 under its proper head in the next chapter. It is 

 also valuable in some cases of founder, and perhaps 

 also for a time as a protection to thin, weak feet, 

 which have been injured and rendered tender by 

 paring and rasping. 



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