84 HORSESHOEING. 



its object is to shorten tlie hoof, which has grown too long under 

 the' protection of the shoe, and prepare it to receive the new 

 shoe. The instruments needed for this work are the rasp and 

 the hoof-knife (Fig. 74) ; upon large and hard hoofs a pair of 

 sharp nippers, or a sharp hewing knife, with broad handle and 

 perfectly flat, smooth sides, may be used, since these instru- 

 ments will considerably facilitate and hasten the work. 



Fig. 74. 



German-English hoof-knife. 



After the shoer has carefully examined the hoofs in the man- 

 ner described upon pages 79 and 80, and has fixed in mind the 

 relation of the height of the hoofs to the size and weight of the 

 body, he cleanses the hoof and removes all stubs of old nails. 

 At the same time he should be asking himself if, where, and how 

 much horn is to be removed. In all cases all loosely attached 

 fragments of horn are to be removed, for example, chips of 

 horn produced by repeated bending and stretching of the lower 

 border of the wall. The sole is then freed from all flakes of 

 dead horn. The shoer then runs the rasp around the outer 

 border of the wall and breaks it off to the depth to which he 

 thinks it should be shortened, and then cuts the wall down to 

 its union with the sole, so that at least one-tenth of an inch 

 of the edge of the sole lies in the same level as the bearing- 

 surface of the wall. Finally, the wall, white line, and outer 

 margin of the sole, forming the "bearing-surface," must be 

 rasped until they are perfectly horizontal, except that at the 

 toe this bearing-surface may be bent slightly upward (rolled toe). 



In dressing the hoof the frog should always be left prominent 

 enough to project beyond the bearing-surface of the quarters 



