158 
MANUAL OF MODERN FARRIERY. 
That moisture and keeping the feet cool are the most 
certain means of preventing contraction, we need only refer 
to the farmer’s horses, which are so seldom, comparatively 
speaking, liable to contraction. It is a very common prac¬ 
tice for farmers to turn out their animals after their daily 
labour. Being thus daily exposed to moisture, they are sc 
much the less liable to hardness and contraction of the hoofs. 
Nothing can be more injudicious than to remove the bars, 
as they are a grand protection against contraction, their 
use being principally to prevent wiring in , so that cutting 
them away is certain to facilitate and greatly increase the 
contraction after it has begun; but we must not have it 
supposed that the removal of the bars of themselves would 
produce this tendency. 
It has been said that thrushes are often the cause of 
contraction, but they are more frequently, if not altogether, 
the consequence rather than the cause. 
Many persons are disposed to have an undue objection to 
contraction, and at once reject a horse that exhibits the 
slightest degree of wiring in of the quarters. There can 
be little doubt but this is a malformation of the hoof; but 
one thing is certain, that its growth is very slow, the altered 
form extremely gradual, and the parts are progressively 
accommodated to the change of form. As the hoof con¬ 
tracts, the under parts, and especially the coffin-bone and 
heels of the coffin-bone, diminish in size. However, this 
may be considered a mere change of form rather than 
of capacity; for as the foot narrows, it acquires additional 
length, in consequence of the elongation of the coffin-bone, 
and accommodates itself as completely to the coffin or box 
as in its original condition ; and its small leaf-like margins 
are as firmly connected with the crust as before the change, 
which, in a great measure, compensates for its limited 
