Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/529

 boutoir, the butter of Blundevil) . . . . The superficies of the foot round the outside now made plain and smooth, the shoe is to be made quite flat, of an equal thickness all round the outside, and open and most narrow backwards, at the extremities of the heels, for the generality of horses,—those whose frogs are diseased, either from natural or incidental causes, require the shoe to be wider backwards; and to prevent this flat shoe from pressing on the sole of the horse, the outer part thereof is to be made thickest, and the inside gradually thinner. In such a shoe the frog is admitted to touch the ground, the necessity of which has been already shown; add to this, the horse stands more firmly on the ground, having the same points of support as in a natural state. Here now is a plain, easy method, agreeable to common sense and reason, conformable to the anatomical structure of the parts, and therefore to the design of nature—a method so plain that one would think nobody could ever swerve from it, or commit any mistake in an art where nothing is required but to make smooth the surface of the foot, to know what loss of crust each kind of foot will bear with advantage to itself, and to nail thereon a piece of iron, adapted to the natural tread of the horse; the design, good, or use of the iron, being only to defend the crust from breaking, the sole wanting no defence, if never pared.. . . . The modern artist uses little difference in the treatment of any kind of foot; but with a strong arm and a sharp weapon carries all before him, and will take more from a weak-footed horse at one paring, than nature can furnish again in some months, whereby such are rendered lame. If a strong-footed horse, with narrow and