SHOEING. 



631 



out a livery stable in that city, and put all the horses on short 

 shoes or tips ; that he believed at the time that the horses would 

 be ruined by such treatment, but, to his surprise, they were 

 greatly improved ; several of them that had been affected with 

 obstinate corns, and which he had been called upon to treat, and 

 could do little more than palliate, though for the first few weeks 

 they traveled sore, entirely 

 recovered ; and that the 

 horses of his stable had bet- 

 ter condition of feet than 

 any in the city. Said he, 

 "The whole point of suc- 

 cess in the Goodenough 

 shoe is, that the iron is so 

 soft that it wears down 

 rapidly, and lets the feet 

 come to the ground." 



These statements were so 

 suggestive to the writer 

 that they led to his study- 

 ing the conditions of shoe- 

 ing with more discrimina- 

 tion and care. It was no- 

 ticed, first, that the feet of 

 young horses that had not 

 been shod, no matter how driven or worked, except the wearing 

 away of the outer rim of the wall, retained a sound, healthy con- 

 dition. This being true, why the necessity of thinning out the 

 sole, opening up the heels, trimming the frog and other parts, and 

 loading down the feet with an amount of iron of such form as to 

 be in most cases entirely out of proportion to the proper adjust- 

 ment and wear required ? 



The writer was next led to observe that horses shod with the 

 most care, according to foregoing principles, the bottom of the 

 foot and frog abundantly cut away and scooped out, the shoe 

 filed and fastened on firmly, the whole made artistic by rasping 

 down the outer surface of the hoof had the worse condition of 

 feet ; while those shod most carelessly or quickly, barely leveling 

 the wall, without regard to sole or frog, and nailing on the shoe 



FIG. 429. Foot of a four-year-old colt that 

 had never been shod. 



