656 SHOEING. 



extent prevail, I find that no amount of skill in the application can 

 bring the rasp and drawing-knife, with the rest of our tools, up to the 

 round pied and buttress of the continental shoer. To produce the same 

 effect, we, with equal knowledge of the requirement, take much longer 

 time and devote more labor to the work ; while in ordinary practice, 

 with us, the work is liable to remain undone or be badly done, as a 

 rule, it is fairly accomplished on the continent. Take a foot grown to 

 one or two inches beyond its normal depth and length, curled over at 

 both heels upon itself, the bottom of the column being in an almost 

 transverse line with the center of the foot, and a morbid thickness of 

 sole and frog impprisoned and bound immovably together such a foot 

 puzzles a workman ; with such a weapon as the rasp and knife, he does 

 not know how to begin or proceed with a view to its proper reduction.* 



"In such a case the foreigner lays his foot- rounder transversely, 

 with the edge toward one heel or column, about one-fourth of an inch 

 from its lower surface, and with two or three taps with the hammer, 

 cuts transversely forward from one to two inches; the same thing is 

 done with the other column, and then usually, but not always, a greater 

 depth is rounded off the toe, and a little, if there be abundance, at the 

 sides ; all of which can be effected in the space of a minute or two; the 

 man then takes the buttress, and in the foreign mode of holding the 

 foot, cuts from toe to heel, and when the hard edge of the wall, and 

 some of its depth has been removed, that which remains is pared down 

 to give the required surface. 



" One advantage, at this point of the operation, I find favorable in 

 the continental practice, is that when there are morbid accumulations 

 of sole, which come in the way, and are as much foreign and incompat- 

 ible with its functions as a snowball at the bottom of the foot, they are 

 met and easily broken up by the direction in which the buttress is 

 pushed ; whereas, by holding the foot ourselves, and working more from 

 heel to toe, our instrument slips over the exfoliations of horn which 

 have their fixed basis behind, and rise in front as they become ripe for 

 being cast off. 



"Having learned these conditions by experience, acquired late, and 

 working according to what I was taught in the course of apprenticeship, 

 I fairly met the inconvenience by making use of the buffer for breaking 

 up the loose, imprisoned sole and exfoliations of the frog ; these parts 

 would detach spontaneously after the wall was reduced to its normal 

 proportion, and the local condition would not ensue but for the general 

 state and want of motion of the foot ; such motion implies health and 

 freedom, in the enjoyment of which sole and frog cast off their flakes 

 and maintain their proper substance. It might appear that this disen- 

 gaged horn, if left unheeded, would fall with time a plausible theory, 

 but incompatible with good practice. Such incumbrance must be got 



* Many intelligent smiths in various parts of this country visited by the writer, 

 are in the habit of using the toeing-knife and buttress. If the growth is excessive, 

 the wall is chipped off as described, and then reduced by the buttress by cutting 

 from the heel forward. 



