Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/684

 the integrity of the foot will vary with the requirements of the animal, i.e. with the services demanded from him. For instance, we would not shoe a race-horse like one for draught, or a hunter like one for carriage-work; the shoes must be varied more or less in form and weight, to suit different purposes and degrees of wear. It will be understood that no fixed shape, size, or weight can be determined for all horses. It may be laid down as a rule, however, that the properties of a good shoe, no matter for what service, must be lightness and durability—opposite qualities which require skill to combine, but which are nevertheless of some moment, more particularly with horses required to move quickly, and for long periods, over paved roads.

One of the great evils that has accompanied the art of farriery for many centuries, in addition, and in immediate relation, to the mutilation of the hoof, has been the excessive weight of the shoes attached to the feet. The most primitive specimens of shoes were only a narrow band of iron, plane on both faces, and were, in all probability, fastened on uncut hoofs. With the introduction of the paring fallacy, more iron was necessary to cover the parts made tender and sensitive by being robbed of their horn, and the lateral expansion and sole-descent theory perpetuated, if it did not exaggerate, the mischief. Not only is a wide surface of metal urgently required to shield the greater part of the sole, as we see in Mr Miles's directions, but it is regarded by only too many men, who ought to know better, that in addition to width, shoes should also possess a good thickness, to protect the foot from jar. The absurdity of this plea does not need demonstration; it may be sufficient to