414 THE HORSE. 



tatter is the better plan, and wherever a horse cuts, it is, in mj 

 opinion, advisable to let him wear a boot for some weeks, until the 

 skin is quite sound again and reduced to its proper thickness. A 

 piece of an old rug folded round the leg so as slightly to overlap, 

 and then tied with a tape and turned down over the fetlock joint, 

 is quite sufficient to serve this temporary purpose, and being soft 

 it is well calculated to protect a swollen joint; but if it is worn 

 for any length of time, the pressure of the tape and the friction 

 of the grit from the road wear away the hair, and cause an un- 

 sightly appearance, which is sometimes permanent. If, therefore, 

 the cutting is not rectified completely in the course of a month or 

 six weeks, a leather or india rubber boot should be nicely adapted 

 to the joint and buckled round it, the flat surface of the strap not 

 having so injurious an effect as the tape of the cloth boot. When 

 the cutting takes place above the joint, a pad must be adapted to 

 its inside, and fastened round the cannon bone by two or three 

 buckles, according to the height at which the injury takes place. 



Such is the best mode of guarding against the injury done 

 by cutting, but we must also consider how it can be entirely pre- 

 vented. In the first place it should be carefully ascertained by 

 what part of the foot or shoe the blow is given. Most commonly 

 it will be found, by chalking the inside of the foot, that a small 

 patch is rubbed clear of chalk, about half an inch above the mid- 

 dle of the quarter, and corresponding with the hindermost nail 

 hole, especially when four inside nails are used. When this is the 

 hitting point, if great care is taken to avoid driving in a nail there, 

 the tendency to cut can never be increased as it often is by a raised 

 clench, and at the same time the rasp may safely be used to reduce 

 the thickness of the hoof at least the eighth of an inch, or often 

 much more. The crust is usually here about three-eighths of an 

 inch thick, and very often it is so sound that it will bear to be 

 rasped down till there is only one-eighth left, provided it has not to 

 bear the pressure of a nail near it, and that the reduction is not 

 carried up too near to the coronet. In the hind foot the quarter 

 is fully half an inch thick, and it therefore will bear reduction 

 better even than the fore foot-. Sometimes the blow is given by 

 the shoe itself, which is fixed on so as to overlap the crust, and 

 then the remedy is simple enough, for this ought never to occur, 

 and can easily be prevented by any smith. But supposing, in spite 

 of these precautions, the cutting still continues after the horse is 

 restored to his natural strength and flesh, can anything be done 

 by shoeing ? In most cases this question may be answered in the 

 affirmative, by the use of what is called a feather-edged shoe. By 

 its aid the heels are both raised, not the inner one only (which is 

 entirely useless and even prejudicial, for then the ground surface 

 of the ehoe is not a true plane), but both heels, the inner one be 



