571 
ON SHOEING HORSES. 
By Arthur Cherry, M.R.C.V.S. 
[Continued from p. 503.] 
In continuing the subject of shoeing, I shall, in accordance with 
the promise in my last communication, examine into the nature of 
Mr. Gloag’s recorded experiments, and the correctness of the de¬ 
ductions he has arrived at from them; because, unless we know 
the functions of the foot, it will not be possible to understand 
the best method of applying or of selecting the most appropriate 
kind of shoe for the different varieties of feet. Now, it unfortu¬ 
nately happens for all theorists that, though the foot is naturally 
composed of the same organisation in every individual of the genus 
equina, yet, like the “ human face divine,” the modifications are 
so endless that a mask made to fit one face will probably not fit 
one other individual in the whole community : so with a horse’s 
shoe; and this not only in the mere configuration, but differing in 
so many important points that, save being made of the same 
material and applied to the same part of the animal, no practical 
resemblance remains. 
Further, in the fitting of a shoe to a horse’s foot, the ease to the 
animal and the utility of the thing itself give so small a scope for 
variety, that the ingenuity of fashion or the exuberance of fancy 
are, in a great measure, if not entirely, excluded; unlike the tailor, 
who, in the making of a coat, provided that the shoulders be com¬ 
fortably covered, has certain other parts upon which he may display 
his taste or fancy without in any great degree interfering with the 
value or usefulness of the garment; the collar, the cuffs, the skirts, 
are all so many appendages which, in great degree, are open to any 
fashion caprice may dictate; no such redundances can exist in a 
horseshoe—it is the utile in re that must be alone looked to. A 
glimmering of so simple a fact evidently pervades the minds of the 
many theorists that have for the last half century put forward their 
views on this subject; and this glimmering has just been sufficient 
to enable them to jump from one extreme to the other, entirely 
thrusting on one side the “ happy mean” in which utility consists. 
One set of theorists begins by telling us that the shape of the foot 
is a truncated cylinder; another, that it is a truncated cone; an¬ 
other, that its circumference is composed of segments of different 
circles; another, it is elastic in one direction. Again, up start 
others with opposite opinions, and each and all are so ready to do 
battle on the question, that he, and he alone, is right, and the others 
