CHAP. IV.] FORM OF SHOE — THE FRENCH. 495 



and screwed on fresh every day, if need be. Sizes 

 of course would vary according to that of the horse 

 and shoe. 



Shape. — For sound feet, both surfaces of the 

 English shoe are made perfectly flat, the inner rim 

 being thinner than the outer. The shoe extends 

 all round the edge of the wall or crust, which it is 

 desirable to defend, and terminates where the bar 

 and crust join at the heel. A curve upwards, at 

 the toe, to prevent tripping, though sanctioned by 

 authority, and- carried to an extreme by Goodwin, 

 and others, is seldom desirable, even with heavy 

 horses, or those which go close to the ground, and 

 is well met by a modification of the German and 

 French method, of forming the shoe wider than 

 ours, and consequently less pointed at the toe. The 

 toe being then rasped close to the shoe, no tripping 

 takes place on that account. 



The French form, or shape, differs from our 

 English shoe, in being made wider and approaching 

 nearer to a semicircle, and instead of being flat next 

 to the hoof, is hammered hollow, which renders 

 the ground surface convex ; a mode of proceeding 

 that suits admirably with their coarse footed horses, 

 and comparatively harmless roads [meaning their 

 petit chemin, and the sides of their grands chemins], 

 but is inadmissible in England, exceping perhaps 

 with our agriculturist owners of the like ordinary 

 cattle. They also make their shoes as thick at the 

 heel as at the toe, which is a transgression against 

 the general precept, at page 489, that we cannot 



