536 



FITTING. 



In many countries what is called hot-fitting— that Is to say, after the 

 foot has been triiumed and leveled, momentarily applying the shoe at 

 a red heat to the foot — is generally practiced to the almost entire exclu- 

 sion of any other method, and the system is not only found to answer, 

 but receives the indorsement of the most competent authorities. The 

 climatic conditions which render the practice open to objection in this 

 hemisphere fortunately enable us to dispense with a procedure against 

 which there exists in the minds of mauy horse-owners a not unreasona- 

 ble prejudice, which, however, is directed at the abuse rather than the 

 intelligent application of a proceeding not necessarily hurtful in itself. 

 The advantage conferred by hot-fitting consists in the fact that a more 

 accurate accommodation is by this means more readily obtained than 

 by any other method, and the contact between hoof and shoe can thus 

 be made more intimate and enduring. In moist climates it is only by 

 means of hot-fitting that a set of shoes can be got to remain on for a 

 reasonable length of time; but in no part of this country have I found 

 any difiBculty of this nature; indeed, on the contrary, shoes are usually 

 allowed to remain on too long, especially in the agricultural districts. 

 It has frequently occurred to me, when in the discharge of my duties 

 as veterinarian to the Farmers' Institute of Minnesota, I have remon- 

 strated with some local blacksmith at the number of gigantic nails he 

 employed in affixing a shoe, that I have been assured that did the shoe 

 not remain on for several months his employer would be dissatisfied 

 and would transfer his custom elsewhere. Nothing could be more 

 short-sighted nor more unreasonable than such conduct. 



The hoof of the horse is in shape a truncated cone with the base 

 downwards; as it grows the circumference of the base consequently in- 

 creases, and the shoe fitted when it was newly put on after a time be- 

 comes too small. It would be just as reasonable for a horse-owner to 

 buy his little boy a pair of shoes which just fitted him when he was six 

 years old, and then expect him to wear them until he was twelve, as it 

 is for him to require his dumb servant, who can not protest against the 

 infliction, to wear his shoes for months in succession without resetting. 

 A badly fitting shoe is to a horse as painful as a tight boot is to his 

 owner, and under no circumstances should shoes be permitted to remain 

 on more than a month or five weeks at the outside; mauy animals re- 

 quire to be reshod even more frequently. It is only when an owner lets 

 his parsimony overcome his reason that he subscribes himself to a penny- 

 wise and pound-foolish policy, which can only result, as such policies 

 invariably do, in a loss to their exponent. 



NAILS. 



The fewest nails, and these of the smallest size, that will ensure the shoe 

 remaining on for the proper length of time, is a rule that should never 



