THEIR FEED AND THEIR FEET. 131 



AGAINST HORSESHOEING. 



- THE New York Tribune says: "Colonel M. C. 

 Weld's noteworthy views on the abuse of shoeing 

 horses, as lately expressed in the Tribune, have at- 

 tracted deserved attention abroad as well as at home, 

 and called out another striking statement of favorable 

 English experience, the points of which we quote 

 from The Mark Lane Express : 



" ' About three years ago, I was led to give the 

 non-shoeing system a fair trial, commencing with a 

 pony constantly driven, and extending the experi- 

 ment to the young farm horses, all of which had, 

 however, unfortunately been shod before the trial be- 

 gan, and am now able to endorse the observations of 

 Colonel M. C. Weld in almost every particular, except 

 as regards traveling on paved surfaces, as in South- 

 ampton, where there is a tramway, it is found that the 

 pony prefers the paved stoneway to the macadamized 

 part on either side. The time that elapsed before 

 the " dead horn " of the hoof grew out was six 

 months, and it was fully eighteen before the insensi- 

 ble frog lost its callousness and grew soft, like strong 

 india-rubber. The pony does not work on the farm, 

 but goes out nearly every day, the greatest number 

 of miles run in any one week being eighty and in any 

 one day thirty-two. 



" ' Before the shoes were removed it was somewhat 

 of a " daisy cutter," had been down once or twice, 

 and stumbled much going down hill ; since discarding 

 shoes it has never stumbled once, and I have driven 



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