354 
WILLIAMSON BRYDEN. 
philosophy, yet the veterinary surgeon either cannot or will 
not try to comprehend it, consequently they blunder along, 
believing in, and practicing what never could be demonstrated 
by them, and causing a heavy average loss of animals every 
year, which might just as well be saved. 
No one has suffered from the mistakes of the veterinary 
surgeon more than the horseshoer, unless it be the poor horse. 
Their interference with the technical work of horse-shoeing 
has done more to confuse the smith and keep horse-shoeing 
backward than it has ever benefitted the art. When one reflects 
on the various shoes recommended by the ordinary writer on 
horse-shoeing, such as high-heeled shoes and low-heeled shoes, 
tips and three-quarter shoes, bar shoes and jointed shoes, 
Charlier, La Fosse, so-called Goodenough, and those of a lot of 
others whose notions of what the hoot’s requirements demand 
are as various as they are wrong, their treatment of the 
whole subject is so ridiculous that it would be picturesque, 
were it not for the sufferings the poor animals have been com¬ 
pelled to endure on account of such equivocal teachings. 
The sacredness, too, with which the frog and the bars, 
the sole and the wall have ever been regarded by these gen¬ 
tlemen, especially the veterinarians, is far from being credita¬ 
ble to their surgical instincts. The horseshoer is not allowed 
by them to use either a rasp or a knife, excepting in the most 
inefficient manner, and the sight of a good buttress would 
throw the modern writer of veterinary works and text-books, 
and professor of horse-shoeing, into hysterics. 
Hoof culture is a benign process or system, no devil is to 
be cast out, consequently no sacrifice is necessary, and no tor¬ 
ture is required. 
I won’t detain you with a detailed history of the early de¬ 
velopment of the hoof of the young foal, but will simply re¬ 
mark that in northern climates, where the winters are long 
and the ground liable to be frozen four or five months, May 
and June are probably the best months for the young animal 
to be born in ; the grass has then come to stimulate the milk¬ 
giving functions, the ground is soft, furnishing the best foot¬ 
ing for the foal, and also for the mare, especially if she has 
been kept in a barn or stable on a dry floor all winter. 
