SHOEING WITH LEATHER. 249 



horses are more liable to them than others, especi- 

 ally horses with short, straight pasterns. It is at 

 times advisable to shoe a horse with leather — that 

 is to say, with leather between the foot and the shoe. 

 The way this is done is thus : A piece of thick 

 leather, large enough to cover the whole foot, is 

 laid over the sole of the foot, and is then fastened 

 on when the nails are driven. The outside super- 

 fluous leather is then trimmed off, and it is essential 

 that the whole of the leather which covers the sole 

 should also be removed. This method of shoeing 

 is resorted to in order to lessen the concussion 

 arising from hard roads, etc. 



When a horse is lame, the first step towards 

 curing him of his lameness is to discover where he 

 is lame — on which leg ; whether the lameness is 

 above or below the knee, and if below, whether it is 

 in the foot or leg. If a man is lame, anybody short 

 of a fool can tell which is the lame leg, because 

 when he walks he limps ; in other words, he uses the 

 lame leg less than the sound one. He stands, 

 dwells on the sound one, and puts no more strain 

 on the lame one than he is forced to do. This 

 is precisely what a lame horse does. He dwells on 

 the sound leg, and ' dots ' on the lame (me. Yet, 

 simple as it may appear to be from the above to 

 determine which leg a horse is lame upon, I can 



