246 THB HORSE. 



quire protection; but nowadays an owner has himself to blame if he sub- 

 mits to having the work done in that wrong-headed and ridiculous man- 

 ner, which has called into existence such a long list of diseases and 

 misery. 



The horse's foot is, after all, a good deal of what we make it, and if 

 our horses, frtDm their colthood up, had their feet more carefully attended 

 to, and especially were they invariably to stand while in confinement 

 or some material less deleterious to the hoof than dry wooden flooring, 

 from which the foot suffers no irritation whatsoever, and by which it is 

 moreover depleted of its natural moisture, their feet would, in the per- 

 iod of the animals' active usefulness, be found to be better shaped, 

 harder, less brittle, and in every way better suited for the work required 

 of them. 



There is one instrnment which I should like to see, if possible, omitted 

 from the shoeing outfit of ever}' farrier, and that is the drawing-knife. 

 If our blacksmiths would use their knives less and their heads more in 

 the execution of their very important and by no means easy duty, our 

 horses would be the better for it, and so would their owners. There is 

 no great mystery surrounding the subject, and the applicatiort of ordin- 

 ary common sense, in lieu of the barbarous routine which has been so 

 long handed down from generation to generation until it has actually be- 

 come a portion of the blacksmith's creed, would go a long way towards 

 obviating man}', 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 preparing 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 indicated. 

 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 de- 

 tails in shoeing, but there is at all events one issue on which it is satis- 

 factory to know that there is absolute unanimity; one practice which all 

 alike utterly condemn; and that is the irrational treatment of the frog 

 and sole, to which I have already alluded. 



Suificient care is not always given to shortening the hoof so that its 



