Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/506

 '28. If a horse which has pared hoofs happens to lose his shoes and walks without them, the horn is quickly used and the feet damaged.

'29. Another defect is in the manner of making large nail-holes in the shoes, etc.

'30. The majority of farriers, in order to pare the sole well, cut it until it bleeds, and to stop the haemorrhage, they burn the place with a hot iron, and the horse returns lame to his stable.'

We see, then, that the curse of paring and heavy shoes was causing great evils in the days of Lafosse, as much as in our own. After enumerating all the vices and defects of shoeing, as it was then practised, he proceeds to lay the foundation for a rational method; and his remarks to this end are particularly happy. In a state of nature, he observes, all the inferior parts of the foot concur to sustain the weight of the body; then we observe that the heels and the frogs—the parts said to be most exposed, are never damaged by wear; that the wall or crust is alone worn in going on hard ground, and that it is only this part which must be protected, leaving the other parts free and unfettered in their natural movements.These are the true and simple principles of good farriery he lays down, and they are as appropriate and explicit today as they were then. 'To prevent horses slipping on the dry glistening pavement (pavé sec et plombé), it is necessary to shoe them with a crescent-shaped shoe—that is, a shoe which only occupies the circumference of the toe, and whose heels gradually thin away to the middle of the quarters; so that the frog and heels of the hoof bear on the ground, and the weight be sustained behind and