Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/487

 than beneath. And when you drive, drive at the first with soft strokes, and with a light hammer, until the nail be somewhat entered. . . . The shoe standing straight and just, drive in all the nails to the number of eight, four on each side, so as the points of the nails may seem to stand on the outside of the hoof, even and just one by another, as it were in a circular line, and not out of order like the teeth of a saw, whereof one is bent one way and one another way. That done, cut them off and clinch them so as the clinches may be hidden in the hoof, which by cutting the hoof with the point of a knife, a little beneath the appearing of the nail, you may easily do. That done with a rape (rasp) pare the hoof round, so as the edge of the shoe may be seen round about.'

He always recommends free paring, and for rough and brittle hoofs 'plenty of rasping on the outside to make them smooth, and the shoe put on with nine nails—four inside and five out.'

For the contracted or hoof-bound foot, he recommends paring the sole thin and opening the heels well, and putting on a shoe like a half moon.

Concerning shoes with calkins, he quotes Cæsar Fiaschi as opposed to their use, and as approving of the Turkish mode of shoeing for mountain travelling. 'Notwithstanding, some never think their horses to be well shod, unless all the shoes be made with calkins, either single or double.'

Of the shoes with rings, shown in Fiaschi's work, he says they were first invented to make a horse lift his feet high, but that they caused a horse pain on hard roads, especially those horses which had not sound feet. Blun-