Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/604

 completely in favour of my procedure, and numerous experiments made in every condition have afforded me the following results. . . . This shoeing consists in the methodical application of a small bar of iron or steel, bent on the flat, thicker and wider at the toe and sides of the toe than at the quarters and heels, especially in its outer branch; it is about the width of the crust at its upper face, is perforated by from four to six nail-holes, rarely more, and is fitted into a groove or recess made at the inferior border of the wall, by means of small English nails with very thin shanks, driven in the usual way. Simple in conception, as it is in execution, this shoeing has many advantages, and its consequences are immense. I will endeavour to prove this to you. First, let us remember what our learned colleague, Professor Bouley, has said in his admirable works on shoeing: "The art of the farrier ought to be to preserve to the hoof the integrity of its form, essentially allied to that of its functions; and this result can only be obtained in leaving to the bars, the buttresses (arcs-boutants—the angle formed by the bar and crust), and the frog and sole all their power of resistance; in protecting them without interfering with their action, their contact with the ground, their suppleness, or their natural flexibility."

'No mode of shoeing as practised to-day can completely respond to these various demands. To apply to the sole of the foot a metallic plate, more or less wide, but always inflexible, restrains it, elevates the frog, prevents its participating in weight-bearing, and, do as we may, hinders its natural functions, destroys more or less rapidly its suppleness, the elasticity of the horny box, and, in a word,