64 [Assembly 



tions. To these proceed young men by whom the art is intended 

 to be pursued as a profession. To these, also, are sent other 

 young men whom agricultural societies and others may have 

 selected to learn skilful shoeing of horses, in order to settle them, 

 respectively, in their districts, as qualified and professed shoeiug- 

 smiths. 



Perhaps the structure and functions of the horse's foot, and the 

 princi{)les and practice of shoeing, should be studied closely, not 

 only by the veterinarian and the shoeing-smith, but by agricul- 

 turists, horse-owners and farm laborers, generally. Sound con- 

 ditions of this organ are at the bottom of all the value and 

 full degree of utility of this most serviceable of our animals. The 

 domestication of horses is more artificial than that of any other 

 stock; and this, together with the necessity for the iron defence, 

 the shoe, which protects the hoof but prisons the foot, renders a 

 general knowledge of the right and fit adaptation of shoeing a 

 matter of the most serious moment. Tiie truism of " no foot no 

 horse," is ever to be borne in mind ; and the amount of injury 

 and diminished usefulness among horses, caused by unskillful 

 modes of shoeing, it is well-nigh impossible to convey any ade- 

 quate idea of. The deterioration and loss accruing daily with 

 horses of all kinds, and this at once as regards action, capacity 

 for labor, and co-ordinate value and price, occasioned by con- 

 tracted and impaired conditions of the fore feet, exceed the dete- 

 riorations and losses, wliether accidental or incidental, which 

 proceed from all other causes put together. Misdirected modes 

 of affixing the shoes, and neglect of the expansive elasticity of the 

 hoofs, are at the root of all the degrees and stages of this univer- 

 sal evil, the direst foe of horses. 



The advantages consequent on the introduction and culture of 

 veterinary science, would prove to be neither limited nor of com- 

 mon account. As a new profession, it would open up an eligi- 

 ble and useful path for many young men ; would gradually 

 extend soundly-based information upon those external and inter- 

 nal maladies to which the domestic animals are subject; would 

 bring within the reach of farmers and stock-raisers skilled assist- 

 ance.; would proffer and disseminate better views and opinions 



