AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 315 



50 as to render the horse useless. Attention is strongly called to 

 this subject as one of importance to our horses. The effort to 

 keep the best blood and improve it is succeeding on many thou- 

 sands of horses in the colony. We invite the attention of those 

 who wish well to that noble servant of man, to the recent remarks 

 of William Miles, of England, on horse shoeing. This book is a 

 quarto, with drawings colored and others — the eighth edition, by 

 Longman, London, 1856. "While we remember," says he, "that 

 the natural term of the existence allotted to the horse is thirty- 

 five to forty years, yet three-fourths of our horses are worn out 

 under twelve years old." 



Aftei" centuries of experience, (says Mr. Miles,) it is curious 

 that invention has not given us any thing better than the nailed 

 on shoe of iron ! Objection is made to the very common, almost 

 universal practice of horse slioers, of trying the hot shoe upon the 

 hoof, for the burning dries up and cracks the hoof to some injuri- 

 ous extent, rendering it quite unsound I For the hollow sole of 

 the foot, Mr. Miles recommends felt or gutta percha to leather. 

 Shakspeare was right in saying that " It was a delicate stratagem 

 to shoe a troop of horse with felt." 



As to the nailing on of tlie shoe, Mr. Miles says that five nails 

 are sufficient to hold on a fore shoe at any kind of work, in any 

 country, and at any pace ; and I again advise you to use that 

 number, placing three nails on the outside and two on the inside. 

 I know that many smiths can keep on the fore shoe with three 

 nails only — two outside and one inside. The feet of the horse 

 should be allowed to expand to suit his weight. 



A short, timid, stumbling step, and the dreaded evil, corns, are 

 the result of over nailing, 



TREVOLTINI SILK— FROM ITALY. 



J?» essay by Mademoiselle Caroline De Susini of Sartena^ Corsica^ 

 to the Zoological Society. 

 This silk worm produces two or three times a year, keeping 

 the eggs in cool places, ice houses, so that they do not hatch until 

 the leaves are fit to feed them. Three educations, say crops of 

 silk have been obtained from this worm in one year, and silk of 

 fine quality, white cocoons, and of a consistence and weight supe- 

 rior to any on the continent. 



