238 
HOUSE-SHOES FIXED ON WITHOUT NAILS. 
birth to many ingenious devices, valuable in cases of accident or 
infirmity; but all have fallen short of the great desideratum —a 
method of shoeing without nails, applicable to general service. All 
the patent shoes hitherto invented have been pulled off by the stiff 
clay soils of costliness and complexity, leaving the rider to revert 
back to the nails of his ancestors. 
It now remains to be seen whether the small staples of annealed 
wire with which the horse is shod that I am daily driving over the 
pavement of this metropolis, has not, at length, effected this desir¬ 
able object. I think that it has ; but this is a matter which public 
opinion alone will decide. My prospectus is before the public, 
shewing the method of applying the staple; and I must venture to 
express the hope that farriers in general will see the necessity of 
practising and making themselves perfect in the simple process 
of drilling small holes through the insensible hoof, at measured dis¬ 
tances, with accuracy and precision, that their trade may not pass 
into other hands. 
1 shall feel gratified if the Service, the Turf, the Field, and the 
Public at large shew a willing disposition to give my invention a 
full, impartial, and ready trial; but I ask for it no further support 
than what it may be found to deserve. Should it prove a weak 
and sickly plant, it will pine in obscurity, and shortly sink into 
oblivion, like many others that have preceded it, despite the high¬ 
est patronage with which it could be honoured. On the other 
hand, if it shall take root and shew itself a healthy and vigorous 
sapling, opposition may for a time retard its growth, but cannot 
long prevent its becoming a lofty tree, spreading its branches over 
the civilized world. 
20th April, 1849. 
*** To those who have not seen the invention in question, the 
above description may prove insufficient to explain its nature. It 
consists of the common fullered shoe, fastened on by means of iron 
wire staples—that have undergone the process of annealing—in¬ 
troduced into the wall of the hoof A A, through holes bored into 
it, taking nearly the same direction and course as the nails do. 
The staples are turned downwards, so that their ends emerge within 
the canal of the fullering at B B, where by means of pliers they are 
brought into contact and twisted together, and the twist afterwards 
turned and beaten down snugly within the canal E E. The deeper 
the fullering, therefore, the better. The staples are introduced 
on either side, the number, as in the use of nails, being left to the 
judgment of the practitioner.—E d. Yet. 
C represents the staple. D shews the course the staple takes through the 
hoof, with its approaching ends twisted together within the fullering. 
