HAISING THE HEELS. 101 



be palliated by the use of calkens. It may be urged in opposition 

 to this, that nature does not provide any such protection to the 

 joints, tendons, and muscles of the hind limbs of the horse, 

 when in his wUd or natural state, to which I can only reply, 

 that the cases are totally different. The horse, when wild, has 

 simply to take care of himself; he has not to carry a man weigh- 

 ing fourteen stones across a stifi" clayey country at a rasping 

 pace ; neither is he ever yoked to a heavy van, loaded with per- 

 haps from three to four tons of iron ; nor to a vehicle, and made 

 to trot fourteen, sixteen, and even eighteen miles an hour upon 

 hard macadamized roads. All these, and many other perform- 

 ances of a Uke nature, the civilized horse, at the bidding of 

 civilized [ ? ] man, is made to perform. 



It is amusing to hear what these sticklers for nature have 

 to advance in matters of this kind. Certainly nature does not 

 employ a farrier for the especial benefit of the animal when 

 untrammelled, and breathing the pure air of his native wilder- 

 ness ; neither does she provide a fashionable boot maker for 

 the Australian savage. It is easy to talk about nature, but it 

 is another matter to draw' rational conclusions from her teach- 

 ings. Wild horses, for aught we positively know to the con- 

 trary, may suffer as much from sprains, spavins, and curbs, as 

 horses do that are domesticated. 



The value of calkens then to the shoes of the hind feet 

 consists in raising the heels from the ground, and that too at a 

 time when the animal may be called upon to exert its physical 

 powers to the utmost limit ; in which case, the levers of the 

 limbs, so far as it is possible, wUl be prevented from being 

 stretched to an extent, which otherwise might prove severely 

 injurious to the living structures. 



The Peetention o^s CrTTiire. — Cutting the hind fetlocks 

 is a common practice with numbers of horses, if made to travel 



