RATIONAL OX- SHOEING. 83 



system of shoeing. The spreading of the heel is stopped, and both 

 of tlie pedal guards against concussion are nullified. That the spring 

 which is afforded by the spreading of the "quarters" is of vast .im- 

 portance I am well satisfied, and also that it is nearly, if not quite, as 

 serviceable in keeping the foot sound as anything in the mechanism 

 of the foot, and all the contrivances to palliate the evils of a full shoe 

 are nearly worthless. 



Where the writer lived when a boy, oxen did the largest proportion 

 of the work of the farm. It was a hilly country, heavily timbered, 

 rocky in inany places, and all the soil was nearly covered with stones. 

 In the winter time, shoes with sharp calkins were a necessity to keep 

 the animal from falling down on the ice-covered roads. Those which 

 were used much in the roads in the summer needed a guard to protect 

 the thin horn. Thei-e were two shoes on each foot, the toe portion 

 being wide, the heel narrowed to a width of scarcely half an inch. 

 They were fastened with very small nails, and the shoer of the ox 

 certainly exhibited far more sense than he did when the horse was 

 the subject. To have followed the plan pursued with the latter, he 

 should have made one in place of two shoes for each foot, and in lieu 

 of the narrow, thin heel, put iron enough in it to raise the pad so it 

 could never touch the ground. He could see the importance of not 

 interfering with the cleft in the toe; the fissures in the heel of the 

 horse were completely overlooked, and the palpable object entirely 

 unheeded. By putting a round shoe on the cloven foot of the ox, 

 securely nailing it so as to completely bind both portions together, 

 there would be a proper analogy in the systems, and the ox crippled, 

 as well as his co-laborer. 



I do not hesitate to ascribe a majority of the ailments to the 

 effect of a wrong system of shoeing ; but it is sufiicient, perhaps, to 

 consider the direct injuries. Contraction, corns, quarter-cracks, 

 bruises affecting the sensitive portions of the foot, ossified cartil- 

 ages, navicularthritis, thrush, atrophy of the frog, etc. In the first 

 year I spent in California I saw more corns and quarter-cracks than 

 had come under my observation in many years previous — in fact, 

 there were more horses troubled with cracking of the hoof than, 

 taking them all together, I had noticed in my experience before. 



