REVIEW: — PLOMLEY’S IMPROVED HORSE-SHOE. 317 
in producing this, but it is mainly brought about in the manner we 
have stated. And in proof that such is the fact, if Mr. Plomley 
or anybody else will notice the condition of a foot that has been 
shod as he recommends for a month or so, he will find precisely 
what we have stated : this fact Mr. Plomley, no doubt, has re- 
marked, and only from oversight has neglected to make mention 
of it. The farrier who comes to pare such a sole will tell us that 
“ it cuts like a piece of new cheese.” This tends to make us, in 
feet shod after this manner, very indifferent about stopping : in- 
deed, our belief is, that such feet require no stopping ; they being 
always kept, as it appears to us, moist enough without. 
No. 4 . respects “ the picking up of stones.” Now, here, we 
cannot help thinking but that Mr. Plomley has caught himself in 
his own trap. We say this more in pun than in ill-nature ; still, 
we think we can demonstrate that we say it not without reason. 
For a horse’s hoof to become what is called “ a stone-trap,” it ap- 
pears to us we cannot do better than shoe it with the ordinary 
“ seated ” shoe, which is bevelled upon its foot-surface and made 
flat upon its ground-surface. Nothing can be better adapted for 
entrapping and holding stones than the concavity of the shoe op- 
posed to the concavity of the sole of the foot. Mr. Plomley, it is 
true, diminishes this liability to entrap by diminishing, by his 
broad web, the entrance into the trap, so that only a small instead 
of a large stone can find admittance. But, why not annihilate the 
trap by reversing the shoe, and so making the foot-surface the 
ground-surface of it, as in fact he has done in his “ hunting 
shoe ]” 
No. 5. Does a broad-web shoe “ lessen concussion !” The 
greater the thickness or body of iron (in the shoe) between the 
concussing and the concussed body, the less, no doubt, the effect 
of one upon the other; on the principle of the little shake or jar 
a man lying upon his back with an anvil placed upon his breast 
feels whenever the anvil is struck, even though it be with a sledge 
hammer, by another man. But, then, the heavy shoe calls for 
stout nailing, and nailing all round, to keep it on, and stout and 
extensive nailing is said to do harm by “fettering” the foot, 
through counteracting its properties of yielding to the superin- 
cumbent weight, and thereby preventing expansion. Recently as 
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