318 REVIEW: — PLOMLEY’S IMPROVED HORSE-SHOE. 
the great question of expansion of the foot has been agitated by 
some of the leading men in our profession, we feel unwilling here 
to prosecute this part of our subject : we shall therefore pass on to 
No. 6, stating that the shoe before us “ wears longer,” and, as 
a necessary consequence, we take it, “ does not (so often) require 
removing.” This will depend, of course, on the substance and 
hardness of the shoe. The objection to so thick a shoe as the 
large one Mr. Plomley has sent us, is its weight. We are of opi- 
nion, however, that a shoe, preserving the same breadth, might be 
made of thinner and harder or closer iron, without materially de- 
tracting from its durability. 
No. 7 informs us— “It (the shoe) is equally well adapted for 
hunting.” We believe that any shoe that is proved well suited 
for general road riding is speedily “ adapted for hunting” by being 
cut as short as possible at the heels, and nailed on with more than 
ordinar}' care ; or, on the other hand, that any shoe that is good 
for hunting is equally fitted for other purposes. And we must 
say that the one Mr. Plomley has sent us as his “ shoe for hunt- 
ing,” is to our mind the very best shoe of the lot for every foot it 
can be nailed upon, and there are but few that will not admit of 
the application of a shoe of the sort. What makes us so warm in 
our praise, and at the same time so confident in our tone of speak- 
ing, of this shoe is, that for many years the concave shoe , as it is 
called, has been in ordinary use in our forge, and certainly has, 
from year to year, increased in favour. Nor do we here stand 
alone in our good opinion of it. Other forges there are — military 
most of them, we believe — which adopt, with the best of effects, the 
same principle of shoeing. 
Having completed our analysis of Mr. Plomley’s shoe, together 
with that of its alleged “ advantages,” we may bring this notice to 
a conclusion; but this we certainly shall not permit ourselves to 
do without expressing our opinion of his “ Improved Horseshoe,” 
as, from the trials we have already made and are still making of 
it, of a highly favourable complexion. We are not of that class 
who pronounce opinions of horseshoes as of books, " off-hand.” 
No person can say for certain what a horseshoe is, or is likely to 
turn out to be, until he has seen it in use. We have now had three 
months’ experience, though that we admit we have limited to a 
