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 Rh CHAPTER XII.

LETTER OF ‘ABERLORNA’ IN ‘FARM JOURNAL’—LIEUT.-COL. HURDETT ON HOT SHOEING, GREASING, ‘STOPPING,’ AND PARING THE HOOP—COLD SHOEING—NORTH METROPOLITAN TRAMWAY HORSES ARE SHOD COLD WITH THE SEELEY SHOE—GRADUAL BREAKING IN OF HORSES TO GO UNSHOD—DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNTRIES WHERE HORSES ARE BRED—ANCIENT WRITERS ON BARE STONE AND WOOD FOR STALLS—OSMER HAS KNOWN UNSHOD HORSES GO SOUND IN ENGLAND—‘OUR MOIST CLIMATE AND HARD ROADS’—MAYHEW AND DOUGLAS ON OPPOSERS OF PROGRESS.

letter of ‘Aberlorna’ seems to render it advisable to introduce here some remarks, which were only intended to be made later on, as to the amount of work to be first given to a horse who has had the full shoe replaced either by a tip or by nothing at all, and also as to small precautions useful to take when making the change.

It is prudent to allow the shoes then on to wear themselves out, as this gives the frog, sole, and bars a chance of somewhat recovering from their last mutilation, which mutilation may have been greater or lesser; as, fortunately, now-a-days some of the smiths do not cut away as much horn as was