CONFORMATION OF HORSES. 
549 
fairly, but, “ It is far more difficult to observe correctly than 
most men imagine; to behold, Humboldt remarks, is not 
necessarily to observe; and the power of comparing and 
combining is only to be obtained by education. It is much 
to be regretted that habits of exact observation are not culti- 
vated in our schools; to this deficiency may be traced much 
of the fallacious reasoning, the false philosophy, that prevails.” 
Except Russian, I have beheld all kinds of cavalry manoeuvres, 
I have never observed them ; “ the power of comparing and 
combining is only to be obtained by education.” I am neither 
civil nor military; sketch me, and I should appear very like 
Uncle Tom’s picture, with your journal in my hand, as 
hopeful a case ; my body might be ordered, the mind would 
remain as it is on this subject, in which, I beg leave to offer 
to your readers these observations . If my reasoning on which 
is unsound, your Journal, I know, is open to any one who 
may wish to show where it is false. Be this as it may, let 
them bear this in mind, that every one who has attempted 
uniformity in shoeing horses has invariably failed. It has 
been “ more honoured in the breach than in the observance.” 
The late Professor Coleman said in his lectures, “ The 
principle of shoeing horses had for its basis the physiology 
of the foot,” which, neither the desire for military uniformity, 
nor the cupidity of capitalists in the private commerce of the 
world, can ever change , “ the practise that will do for A or B, 
will not for C or D ;” and I deny with him, that uniformity 
either in the army or private forges is practicable. It is 
more so in the army than in private forges, where, from the 
cupidity of owners of horses, it is impossible. Although 
Principal Veterinary Surgeon, he never thought of uniformity, 
much less of ordering his students to think like him. He 
said, “ I will not be President of the Veterinary Medical 
Society, because I should be a restraint on you ; I leave you 
at liberty to comment on my theory and practices.” 
In The Veterinarian , No. 50, for February, 1852, p. 69, 
I read, “The generally received opinion in this country 
has been, the alternate expansion and contraction of the base 
of the foot ; until of late years the London lecturers, together 
with a few Army Veterinary Surgeons, have assailed this long- 
established theory, and denied the expansibility of the general 
surface of the foot.” The writer might have believed this, that 
it happened in the riding school, and was observed by the late 
Strickland Freeman, but others knew that on hard surfaces 
it did not happen, but just the contrary, so as it was never 
established — we had nothing to assail. Experiments proved 
that the one or the other depended upon causes 1 have before 
