198 THE HORSE. 



wet; thirdly, to sec that the shoes are removed at the end of every 

 three weeks, or more frequently if necessary; and fourthly, to 

 examine carefully every day that they are securely nailed on with- 

 out any of the clenches having started up from the surface, so as 

 to endanger the other leg. 



Dryness of the feet is prevented by the use of what is called 

 stopping, which is composed either of cow-dung alone, or cow-dung 

 and clay mixed, or t of cow-dung and pitch. The first is by far the 

 most powerful application, but it moistens the sole too much if 

 employed every night, and then produces the opposite evil in the 

 shape of thrush. A mixture of equal parts of cow-dung and clay 

 may be used every night with advantage, and this I believe to be 

 the best of all stoppings. It should be kept in a strong box of 

 wood, about a foot long and eight inches wide, with a handle across 

 the top, and it should be applied the last thing at night to the soles 

 of the fore feet only, by means of a thin piece of wood, a foot long 

 and a couple of inches wide, with which the space within the shoe 

 is completely stuffed. If the feet are obstinately dry, in spite of 

 repeated stoppings with cow-dung alone, which will rarely be the 

 case, a table-spoonful of salt may be added to the cow-dung, and 

 this will never fail. For most horses stopping with cow-dung alone 

 once a week is sufficient, but the groom can judge for himself, by 

 their appearance, of the number of stoppings required. If three 

 parts of cow-dung and one of clay are used, the feet may be stopped 

 twice a week, or, perhaps, every other night, and if equal parts of 

 each are adopted as the composition, almost any feet will bear being 

 stopped every other night, with the exception of flat or pumiced 

 soles, which should never be stopped at all. On the night before 

 shoeing, every horse, even if he has flat soles, will be the better for 

 having his feet stopped, the application softening the horn so as 

 to allow the smith to use his knife to slice it without breaking it 

 into crumbling fragments. Several patents have been taken out 

 for felt pads, to be soaked in water, and then inserted in the hollow 

 of the shoe, but they do not answer nearly so well as cow-dung 

 stopping, which has far more emollient qualities than mere water. 1 

 believe nothing has yet been discovered which has qualities at all 

 equal to this old-fashioned natural remedy. 



Thrushes are prevented by keeping the frogs free from ragged 

 layers of the elastic substance of which they are partly composed, 

 and at the same time by maintaining a dry state of the litter on 

 which the horse stands. I am not now considering the manage- 

 ment of the horse at grass, where thrushes are generally produced 

 when the weather is very wet, or when the pasture is of too marshy 

 a character, but the frogs of the stabled horse, which ought never 

 to be allowed to be so moist as to become decomposed. Some 

 ulcerated conditions of the frog which are still considered to come 



