533 



loug handed down from generation to generation until it has actually 

 become a i>ortion of the blacksmith's creed, would go a long way to- 

 wards obviating many, if not most, of the cruel wrongs to which our 

 horses' feet are day by day needlessly subjected. 



The outside, or horny wall, and that portion of the sole which is in 

 immediate contact with it, on which the shoe should rest, are the 

 only portions of the foot which require to be interfered with in prepar- 

 ing the foot for the shoe, and all the trimming that is necessary can and 

 ought to be effected by means of the rasp. The frog and sole should 

 on no pretext whatever be meddled with, save to the extent I have in- 

 dicated. Their presence in their entirety, and in their natural state, 

 is essentially necessary to the well-being of the foot, and neither brooks 

 the touch of the steel. 



There may be differences of opinion among authorities as to minor 

 details in shoeing, but there is at all events one issue on which it is 

 satisfactory to know that there is absolute unanimity ; one practice 

 which all alike utterly condemn 3 and that is the irrational treatment 

 of the frog and sole, to which I have already alluded. There is, how- 

 ever, no particular in which the thinking horse-owner finds himself 

 more frequently at variance with his blacksmith, for there is no detail 

 in all the latter's misconceived procedure to which he clings with such 

 colossal obstinac}', which is not open to argument, and which sets 

 common sense at defiance. 



It is a strange fact, but none the less true, that all the world over the 

 farrier is the one among all our artisans who is least amenable to sug- 

 gestions from his employer. Other mechanics permit their patrons at 

 least some discretion as to the size, shape, and structure of the article 

 desired, but when the ordinary horse owner takes his animal to the 

 shoeing forge he has usually to place himself absolutely in the black- 

 smith's hands, and give him carte blanche to cut and carve at his un- 

 holy will, or else take his horse elsewhere, and there probably find him- 

 self no better off'. The result is that his horse's feet are mercilessly 

 mutilated instead of being left as nearly as possible as nature in her in- 

 effable wisdom made them. 



Plate xxxxii, Fig. 1, shows the only parts which should be re- 

 duced -when a foot is properly prepared for the shoe. Sufficient care is 

 not always given to shortening the hoof so that its angle should con- 

 form exactly to the inclination of the limb. It would be misleading to 

 la,y down any arbitrary degree of obliquity. The angle differs in differ- 

 ent cases, and the natural bias of the superimposed structures is the 

 only safe guide to follow. More than one instrument has been devised 

 for ascertaining the correct degree of obliquity, some of them simple and 

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

 way of deciding. Too much importance can not possibly be attached 

 by the workman to this and the succeeding step, namely, leveling the 

 ground surface of the foot, as the slightest departure from absolute 



