Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/711

Rh sandcracks? Those of the officers; and simply because they are too carefully, too properly shod.' As Samson's strength was concentrated in his uncut locks of hair, so it may truly be said that the highest development of a horse's powers is intimately dependent on the integrity of the horn of his feet (which we may assert is also a mass of hairs). And just as the giant was rendered helpless by the use of a razor, at the instigation of the crafty Delilah, so is the noble soliped in a great measure deprived of his strength and graceful movements by the unjustifiable and barbarous employment of the knife and rasp. There can scarcely be any doubt that the practice of paring the soles and frogs, and raising them from contact with the ground, by which they are thrown into disuse, and waste just as the muscles of a man's arm would if the limb were tied up for years, induces a hereditary tendency to contraction and deformity of the feet, as well as the occurrence of several serious maladies which affect them.

Taking into account the amount of work horses may have to perform, and making every allowance for its effects during a lengthened period, there can be no doubt whatever that the feet will remain nearly, or quite, as perfect after twenty or thirty years' service as they were before being submitted to the farrier's care, if only a rational system of shoeing be pursued. The indispensable art of farriery, while serving the purpose for which it was originally intended, should also, as we have so often insisted, be conservative in its relations towards the foot. The natural form and functions of this all-important organ should be maintained intact; and even