ON SHOEING HOUSES THAT STRIKE OR CUT. 
45 
A minute examination of this point would far exceed the limits 
allotted to this division of the work; and, therefore, at present 
the author will confine himself to that part of the subject only 
which is absolutely necessary to be understood. 
For horses, therefore, which cut their hind legs, the shoe at 
the outer heel should be half an inch in thickness, according to 
the kind of horse and the degree in. which he cuts. The web 
of the shoe should gradually become thinner until it reaches the 
toe, which should be of the ordinary thickness, and from which 
it should slope off, and end in a tip in the middle of the inner 
quarter. This shoe, in point of effect, would be equally proper 
for the fore feet, were it not that in such horses as are used for 
the saddle, the fore feet, being more charged with weight than 
the hind ones, are much more liable to be injured, and a horse 
thus shod on the fore feet might go unsafe ; therefore it is expe- 
dient to let the inner quarters of the shoe be thin, and reach to 
the heel, but the outer edge should be bevelled off, so as to slope 
inwards. The same kind of shoe is equally well calculated to 
prevent the speedy cut ; observing to bevel off still more strongly 
the part which strikes, and not to put any nails thereabouts. 
And here it may be proper to remark, that in sound feet the heel 
of the shoe should reach as far on the heel of the hoof as to 
admit of the angle formed by the crust and the bar resting fully 
upon it ; but it should not be carried quite as far as the end of 
the heel of the hoof. 
In order to ascertain what would happen to a horse shod with 
different kinds of shoes, the following trials were made: — 
EXPERIMENT I. 
A horse with a narrow chest, who had never cut, and having 
parallel shoes on his fore feet, was trotted at about the rate of 
eight miles an hour in a straight line over ground sufficiently 
soft to retain slightly the impression of the shoes, but not to 
admit the feet to sink into it. 
Two parallel lines were drawn along the track, including be- 
tween them the prints of the shoes. By these it was found that 
there was regularly a distance of nine inches and a half between 
the outer edge of the near fore shoe and that of the near off shoe. 
EXPERIMENT II. 
Shoes thick in their inner quarter, and like a tip, reaching 
only half way on the outer quarter, were then used ; and it ap- 
peared that the distance between the outer edges of the prints 
