590 
ON rODOMETRIC SHOEING COLD. 
carbonic acid gas is also yielded to the plant. Gradually and 
slowly this action proceeds : and, as rain comes, the peat charcoal 
(which will usually last in the land for three, four, or five years) 
receives from it a renewed supply of ammonia and salts, thus un- 
ceasingly storing itself with increased fertilizing power. 
Such being the actual properties of peat charcoal, may we not 
assume that it is a “ disinfectant ,” if any thing can be I Being 
perfectly pure itself, it seeks for and draws from the atmosphere 
around all impurities. It becomes the recipient for that noxious- 
ness which, no one will doubt, acts with evil upon us, and will not 
yield it again until it is itself destroyed. 
If infection exist, where there is no perceptible odour, peat 
charcoal may not be a disinfectant. On the other hand, if we 
know that infection does exist where noxious odours are present, 
and that the withdrawal of those odours from the atmosphere gives 
health, I may perhaps assume that so far, at least, peat charcoal 
is a disinfectant as well as a deodorizer . — JASPER W. ROGERS. 
Farmers Herald, September 1850. 
Foreign Extracts. 
On Podometric Shoeing cold, as practised in the French 
Army. 
By M. Reynal, Chief Veterinarian to the §th Lancers. 
Up to 1840 the French cavalry were shod conformably to princi- 
ples laid down at the veterinary schools, under the surveillance of 
the respective regimental veterinary surgeons. These principles 
were the same as had been taught by Lafosse, Bourgelat, Chabert, 
and Gohier, modified in accordance with such further knowledge 
in the anatomy and physiology of the foot as had been elicited by 
the successive labours of Giraud and Bracy Clark. These modi- 
fications had for their chief aim the diminution to the utmost pos- 
sible extent of the opposition set up by the iron shoe to the elasti- 
city of the natural unshod foot of the horse ; and up to the year 
1840 were the methods of shoeing laid down by these several illus- 
trious masters scrupulously followed. 
It was at this period that first appeared the system of podo- 
metric shoeing, — which means taking measure of the foot, and 
adapting the shoe cold to it; — a system which was said to protect 
the horse at once from the accidents to which he is liable in the 
forge, and to the ill consequences of shoeing as then practised. The 
animal had no need any longer to go to the forge ; the smith, no 
