Page:Horses and roads.djvu/204

 188 horse could do his work over the paved streets of London, which are the cause of so much injury to shod horses through their slipping about upon them so continually, and the ‘concussion striking through the iron up the leg’ (Douglas).

This brings us back again to the question of roads—there are no bad ones for an unshod horse; but neither the hardest nor the roughest are the worst.

We have before cited Xenophon, but now we will do so more fully. He says: ‘Damp and smooth stable-floors injure even naturally good hoofs;  to prevent damp, they should slope backwards.’ The damp of acrid excrement is evidently implied. ‘To prevent them from being smooth, they should have irregular-shaped stones inserted in the ground, and close to one another, similar to a horse’s hoof in size; for such stable-floors give firmness to the feet of horses that stand upon them. The ground outside the stable-door, upon which the horse is groomed, may be put into excellent condition, and serve to strengthen the horse’s feet, if a person throws down upon it here and there four or five measures full of round stones, large enough to fill the two hands, and each about a pound in weight, surrounding such spaces with an iron rim, so that the stones may not get scattered; for as the horse stands on these, he will be in much the same condition as if he were made to travel part of every day on a stony road. A horse must also move his hoof when he is being rubbed down, or when he is