250 TSB HORSB. 



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 on more 

 than a month or five weeks at the outside; many animals require to be 

 reshod even more frequently. It is only when an owner lets his stingy- 

 ness overcome his reason that he allows himself to follow a penny-wise 

 and pound-foolish policj', which can only result, as such policies invari- 

 ably do, in a loss. 



Nails. The fewest nails, and these of the smallest size, that will 

 keep the shoe on for the proper length of time, is a rule that .should 

 never be departed from. The nail holes should not be punched too fine, 

 that is, too near the outside edge of the web of the shoe (this is a very 

 common failing of "keg shoes" ) if punched coarser the nails will take 

 a thicker aud lower hold of the walls, and in this way obviate their hav- 

 ing to be driven so high up as to approach dangerously near the sensi- 

 tive structures. Two of the commonest errors in shoeing are using too 

 many nails and these of an altogether unnecessary size, and then driving 

 them too high up into the walls. If a perfectly level bearing has been 

 obtained (as ought to be the case) it is astonishing how few and how 

 small nails will hold the shoe firmly in its place; but let the fitting be 

 carelessly done, then, no matter how the shoe may be nailed on, but a 

 short time elapses ere the clinches open and the .shoe works loose. When 

 we bear in mind that the wall of the hoof consists of a number of hair- 

 like tubes cemented together, and that each tube is one of an infinite 

 number of minute canals, which diffuse throughout the horn a fluid that 

 nourishes and preserves it, it will be readily understood that each nail 

 driven into the wall deflects those little tubules, probably absolutely 

 closing those with which it comes into actual contact and hurtfuUy com- 

 pressing those lying half way between the nails, thus impairing if not 



