557 



'•dishiug" or "paddling" is shown in Plate XXXXIII, Fig. _', but I 

 can not acknowledge so implicit confidence in its efficacy, as the vice 

 is the result of a j)hysical malformation,- which mechanical means can 

 go but a small waj' to remove or palliate. 



There are many other styles of shoe, the product of American inge- 

 nuity, for which probabl}" equal merit might be claimed, but there are 

 others, which, while they ma3" cure or mitigate the special defect 

 against whicli they are directed, only do so at the expense of some 

 other j)ortion of the structure. It has many a time furnished food for 

 thought to the writer, that, in this great commonwealth, while there 

 are such a large number of artificers who make horse-shoeing a pro- 

 fession, who offer such convincing testimony of a vast amount of care- 

 ful thought and patient study of at least some of the principles of 

 their very important i)rofession as many of these devices afford, the 

 bulk of such work should be permitted to fall into the hands of a set 

 of incompetent, ignorant, and ofttimes unprincipled bunglers, who 

 prey upon the credulity of their emploj^ers and inflict upon the most 

 generous of all our dumb servants an amount of injury which curtails 

 the period of his usefulness and results in his premature decadence at 

 an age when he ought still to be in his prime. It is possible, if not 

 probable, that in the future it maj^ become a less invidious task to 

 discuss this much vexed problem. In this age of marvelous ingenuity, 

 is it visionary to hope that it is within the power of chemistry to 

 develop some preparation which, applied to our horses' hoofs in a 

 liquid or pultaceous form, will quickly harden into a substance closely 

 resembling the natural horn, which will enable us to dispense alto- 

 gether with the lieav}', unyielding iron, and while it affords the neces- 

 sary protection to the foot will permit it to retain to the full its won- 

 drous combination of lightness, strength, and elasticity, and enable it 

 to perform its varied functions under the most exacting conditions 

 wiiich advanced civilization can impose, with that marvelous trinity 

 of ai)i)arently incompatible characteristics unhampered as they left 

 the workshop of the Creator, all acting together in perfect harmony 

 and absolute efficiency? 



In the meantime it behooves us to make the most of the means 

 within our power. Our horses are national property. Surelj', there- 

 fore, it is time that the possibility of a great national economy was 

 recognized, and some legislation formulated which Avould require an 

 established standard of attaijiment in a class of workmen to whose 

 care propert}^ of such value is habitually intrusted, and uijon whose 

 proficienc}^, or the reverse, so much of its utility or comparative worth- 

 lessness depends, while it, at the same time, provided for some means 

 of practical instruction Avhich contemplated raising the science of 

 horseshoeing above the baneful influences of ignorance and traditional 

 I'outine, to that position to which its impoi-tance to us as a people 

 justly entitles it. 



