550 



and efficacious; but an inspection of the foot in profile is usually the 

 best way of deciding. Too much importance can not possibl}^ be 

 attached by the workman to this and tlie succeeding step, namely, 

 leveling the ground surface of the foot, as the slightest departure 

 from absolute exactitude here renders whatever amount of care he 

 may devote to the completion of his work vforse than useless. The 

 ver}^ smallest deviation from the perpendicular entails disastrous con- 

 sequences not only on the foot but on the entire limb. In the foot 

 itself, when the weight is borne unevenly, the lowest parts receive an 

 undue share; the pressure retards the growth of new horn, and the 

 foot in consequence becomes weakened, distorted, and deformed. In 

 the limb, deflected as it is by an uneven basis, from the ground sur- 

 face to its union with the trunk, the angle of incidence of the weight 

 is imposed unequally, and bone and tendon mutually suffer from the 

 strain. 



THE SHOE. 



The shoe should be as liglit as the Aveight of the animal and the 

 nature of the work he is expected to perform will admit of. I am not 

 now writing for the trotting horseman, who knows his own business 

 better than I can teach him. In referring to shoeing smiths it is pos- 

 sible that I should have made an exception in favor of the finished 

 artist who arms the feet of the trotter with those masterpieces of skill 

 and ingenuity wdiich balance his gait, level his action and perfect the 

 rhythm of the motion with which'he spurns the flying track behind 

 him, wdien thousands of anxious eyes watch his every footstep, and 

 fortunes depend on the length and tirelessness of his stride. That is 

 a branch of the business which has received an amount of attention 

 and achieved triumphs unrivaled or unapproached in other lands. 

 Yet have I seen that artist (for he is nothing less), after fitting and 

 setting a shoe, perfect in workmanship as a piece of jewelry, reach 

 out for his tool box and rasp the foot from the coronary band to the 

 plantar border, and thus wantonly court disaster, for what reason let 

 him tell us if he can. 



Heavy shoes not only burden the animal which is condemned to wear 

 them, for there is truth in the old adage, "an ounce at the toe means 

 a pound at the withers," but they also increase the concussion insepa- 

 rable from progression, and even in the trotter, whose work is meted 

 out to him v.'itli judicious care, although the weight doubtless accom- 

 plishes the work for w^hich it was intended, it is a draft at usury on 

 the horse's futui-e soundness, which that animal is bound to take up 

 at maturit3^ 



The legitimate mission of the shoe is to prevent undue wear of the 

 walls, and a light shoe will do this quite as well as a heavy one; it is 

 moreover entirel}' erroneous to suppose that a heavy shoe necessarily 

 wears longer than a light one, as experience proves the contrary, in 

 manv instances, to be the ease. Even among our mammoth draft 



