Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/590

 in the second there was only 1 in 183. This enormous difference would have been still greater, if the hot fitting had been practised in the ordinary manner. But the School was then labouring under an impression of dangers which I might almost term chimerical, from burning the sole, and which the theory of podometric shoeing had developed. So that an order was given to the farriers to apply the hot shoe lightly, and immediately remove all that portion of the horn which had been in contact with it; this was almost a return to cold fitting. The order was punctually executed, under the uninterrupted superintendence of the acting brigadier.'

This evidence is in perfect harmony with that furnished at a later period by Colonel Ambert of the Saumur School, who was at first a zealous partisan of Riquet's system. 'Out of 650 horses, the effective strength of a regiment, during every month from 55 to 60 lost their shoes in marching or manœuvering, since the employment of cold fitting; or, in other terms, the regiment has not marched for an hour without losing a shoe. With the system of hot-fitting, the same regiment lost only one shoe in a journey of eight stages.' After an extensive experience, this observer arrives at the following conclusions:

'1. The hot fitting is not attended by any danger or inconvenience when properly practised (that is, on hoofs the soles of which are pared).

'2. The solidity of hot shoeing (or fitting) being greater than that of cold, the workman having more