Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/522

 of the ferrure à chaud, combined with burning the hoofs in order to rob them more easily of their horn. Laguerinière speaks of the farriers burning the horny sole, to make it the more easily pared, and the dangers of this practice. 'On doit bien se donner garde de souffrir qu'on brûle les pieds aux chevaux avec un fer chaud, comme font la plupart des maréchaux, afin qu'ils soient plus aisés à parer.' Then he speaks of the clips of the shoe only being made hot to fit it to the foot of carriage horses: 'Mais, comme pour les chevaux de carrosse on est obligé de mettre un pinçon à la pince du fer, dans cette occasion on ne peut se dispenser de faire chauffer ce pinçon, afin qu'il puisse s'enfoncer dans la corne; mais tout le reste du fer doit être froid.' And Lafosse, in 1756, as we have seen, speaks of the sole chauffée and the sole brulée; so that in this interval the farriers had resorted to the expedient of heating all the sole, in order to make it more easily yield to the paring-knife, though it is recommended that the shoe should be fitted while in a hot state to the hoof.

In Laguerinière, we find the first mention of clips being used to aid in retaining the shoes. In all the ancient specimens I have examined, nothing of the kind is to be found; though frequently the toe of the shoe is slightly curved upwards, perhaps to serve as a clip, and a nail is sometimes driven into the centre of the toe, as in the Hod Hill specimen, with the same object.

Lafosse the younger repeats, in a great measure, the recommendations of his father, and appears to have tested the merits of his method; so that it is scarcely necessary to