Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/577

 he imagined that it descended towards the shoe to a serious degree. The weight of the shoe was of little importance. 'The inconvenience to a horse of an ounce or so of increased weight in each shoe is not worth a moment's consideration, compared with the discomfort to him of travelling upon a hard road with a bent shoe on his foot, straining the nails, and making unequal and painful pressure; the other evil arising out of light shoes is a deficiency of width in the web, which robs the foot of much valuable protection, and leaves the sole and frog exposed to numberless injuries, that a under web would effectually prevent.' For his own horses, he took special care that the same width of web is continued throughout the whole shoe back to the heels, giving increased covering and protection to the sole of the foot.' He points out readily enough, the great danger there is in a horse injuring his foot and dropping suddenly lame on putting it upon a stone, and speaks of it as unphilosophical in not covering nearly the whole of that surface with a very wide-webbed shoe.

After this mutilation of the sole, it is asserted that the situation of the nails determines the form of the foot. The shoe was the ordinary seated one of Osmer and Moorcroft, bent up at the toe in the form of a worn shoe, or on Goodwin's principle; it was to be of the same thickness from one extremity to the other, and to have a good flat even space all round for the crust to bear upon, 'for it must be remembered the crust sustains the whole weight of the horse.' The ground surface was to be fullered for the reception of the nails, which were to be as few as possible—five or six: three or four on the