Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/512

 been wisely devoted to the importance of allowing the posterior parts of the foot to rest on the ground without the intervention of the shoe. 'It is useful and even necessary to put short shoes on all flat feet, particularly on those which have the form of an oyster-shell. Every flat foot has low heels; but nature, to remedy this defect, bestows a large frog to preserve these parts. We ought not, then, to pare the soles, much less cut them out towards the heels; neither should the hoofs be too much rasped; all these practices are so many abuses which bring about the destruction of the horses' feet. The first abuse—hollowing out the heels, is to destroy the horn which forms the bars and prevents the heels and quarters from contracting; the second abuse—rasping the foot, is to destroy the strength of the hoof, and consequently to cause its horn to become dry and the horny laminae beneath to grow weak; from this often arises an internal inflammation, which renders the foot painful and makes the horse go lame.'

It ought to be always remembered, that the more a horse's foot is pared, so the more do we expose it to accidents; it is depriving it, in the first place, of a defence that nature has given it against the hard and pointed substances it encounters; and, in the second place, and which is of the utmost advantage for both horse and rider, in not paring the sole, and only using as much of a shoe as is necessary to protect the horn, the animal will be no longer liable to slip on bad roads in winter or summer, when they are vulgarly called plombé, as will be shown.

'1. Causing a horse to walk on the frog and partly on the heel, the former is found to be rasped by the