BULLETIN 1168, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Types of Shoes. 
Many of the shoes examined showed excessive toe wear. Many 
were worn through to the middle sole at the tip before the rest of the 
sole showed much wear. When worn to this extent, the shoe, of course, 
should be repaired, which would mean that the service of most of the 
original sole would be lost. Furthermore, most people having such 
shoes continue to wear them until they are worn through the middle 
sole and welt and sometimes until they are worn down on the uppers at 
the toe. This means not only that for some time the feet have not 
had proper protection, but that the time, labor, and cost of repair to 
shoes so worn would be almost prohibitive and that much leather 
would be wasted. Plate I shows excessive toe wear and its conse- 
quences. 
This is an important matter. Since all the shoes had been carefully 
fitted to the soldiers, it is not probable that the excessive wear at the 
toe can be ascribed to the fact that the shoes were too short. It 
appears rather that this condition, which was far too general to be 
attributed to the personal factor, was occasioned by the type or con- 
struction of the shoes. This view is supported by the results reported 
in Table 2. 
Table 2. — Toe wear of different types of shoes. 
Specifications. 
Number 
of shoes. 
Shoes 
showing 
undue 
toe wear. 
412-2-9 
SOS 
57 
73 
Per cent. 
61.5 
1352 
45.6 
1258 
24.6 
Specifications 412-2-9 require two full soles on the Munson last; 
specifications 1352 are practically the same as 412-2-9, except that 
the shoes are made on a slight rocker last; specifications 1258 call for 
only one outsole on the Munson last. It is believed that the excessive 
toe wear is due to the stiffness of the shoes caused by the double shank 
which permits the shoes to bend but little. Thus, in walking the 
weight of the body is concentrated at the extreme end of the sole, 
instead of being distributed over a greater area at the ball. The 
slight rocker effect in specifications 1352 has a tendency to overcome 
this, while with specifications 1258 the single sole gives greater flexibil- 
ity to the shoe and materially reduces the wearing action at the toe. It 
is understood that the tendency to excessive wear at the toe has been 
overcome in the Army shoe by reducing the thickness in the shank 
to one sole only, thereby giving the flexibility previously lacking. 
Full double soles, that is double soles in the shank and under the 
heel, should be used only with some means of increasing materially 
the flexibility of the sole in the shank. Shank stiffness, with conse- 
quent rapid wear and waste of leather, also may be partly overcome 
by making shoes or boots on a pronounced " rocker "last. The most 
effective construction for securing the protection and service of a 
double-sole shoe, however, would seem to be a single-sole shank and 
a double sole at the ball, in other words, a half-sole tap on top of a full 
sole. 
