316 REVIEW; — PLOMLEY’S IMPROVED HORSE-SHOE. 
6thly. “ It wears longer, and does not require removing.” 
7thly. “It is equally well adapted for hunting.” 
Taking these laudatory statements into our consideration in the 
order in which they are presented to us — 
With No. 1, as has been signified by us before in this article, 
we are quite of accord. 
But with No. 2, asserting that it (the shoe) “ enables the horse 
to use all the 'powers of his foot, and travel with ease,” we have a 
great deal of fault to find, either as ambiguously expressed, or as a 
statement incompatible with our physiological knowledge of the 
foot. The foot possesses no active or self-moving “ powers.” All 
the “powers” it has, consist in its properties of elasticity and 
(which has of late been doubted) expansion ; and to the action of 
these Mr. Plomley’s shoe, so far from contributing, is on the con- 
trary, from the nailing it requires, unfavourable. And as for a 
horse being able to “ travel with ease” with it, such an assertion 
naturally leads a person to infer that all other shoes are apt to give 
horses uneasiness, — an inference or inuendo contradictory to the 
commonest experience. 
No. 3. Supposing that the sole of the hoof, instead of being pared 
away with a drawing-knife in the ordinary manner, is left to ex- 
foliate of itself, a broad covering of shoe cannot fail to have the 
effect of “ preventing the chipping out of the horny exfoliating 
sole;” and since we, for our own part, have of late, prompted by 
past experience, been growing less and less fond of the drawing- 
knife, we regard this as by no means a trifling advantage. If the 
broad-web shoe of itself is advantageous as a protector to the foot 
against stones and other hard bodies, by leaving the old sole in, to 
separate and come away of its own accord, and (through the broad 
shoe) by retaining it during exfoliation, it must afford additional 
and more effectual protection. 
But along with this comes another and more consequential ad- 
vantage to the foot, — one overlooked by Mr. Plomley, and only 
discovered to ourselves by dint of practice and observation -this 
is, the humid and elastic condition in which the live sole is through 
such means constantly kept, in consequence of its natural exuding 
moisture being stayed by them from evaporation. The retention 
of wet, dirt, and stopping, by the broad web may have some effect 
