Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/589

 the horse's feet being accurately ascertained by means of the podometer, this was entered in a register, so that the shoes could be made in the forge, and the animal shod with them without being required to leave his stable.

The idea appeared to be excellent, and was at first willingly, if not gladly, received by the veterinary profession in France, where it was extensively tested. M. Riquet had so highly exaggerated the risks and injurious effects of applying the hot shoe to the hoof, and so vaunted the advantages to be derived from his podometric ferrure à froid, that a large number of cavalry officers became temporary converts, and indeed unreasonable enthusiasts. Even the French Minister of War did not escape the contagion, and on the 30th August, 1845, issued an order that ' in all mounted corps the cold method of fitting was to be immediately substituted for the hot.' This was no proof in favour of the invention, but rather a testimony to the plausible statements and peculiar tact of M. Riquet.

Of course the matter was soon tested; though it was some time before it was finally decided. 'At the Cavalry School of Saumour,' writes M. Barthélemy, 'experiments have been made from the 22nd September, 1841, to the 5th October, 1844. During these three years all the near-side horses of the school have been shod by the cold, and the off-side ones by the hot method. In that space of time, out of 22,579 shoes which had been fitted in a cold state, 386 were lost, detached, or broken, and only 123 out of the same number fitted while hot; that is, in the first case, 1 shoe in 58 was detached, while