Page:Horses and roads.djvu/76

 60 better sentiments of the present age has been proved to be a waste of time; the better plan is to appeal to their pockets.’ Now, it is an acknowledged fact that the exercise of these cruelties costs every horse owner considerable sums yearly; and, according to Mr. Douglas, although the natural life of the horse is from thirty-five to forty years, three-fourths of them die under twelve years old, and, in the army, even sooner. Therefore, on an average, every one buys three horses where he might do with one if he were only humane to that one. This ought to be sufficient inducement to men to look to their horses’ feet, for it is through the feet that nearly all are thus early rendered useless, and through the feet to the legs. ‘One horse could wear out four pairs of feet,’ is an old proverb, and a true one, amongst horsemen; and Philip Astley justly wrote: ‘Certainly he that prevents disease does more than he that cures.’ Now diseases of the feet are very rarely cured at all;  but, by the use of brake-power and a sensible system of stable treatment and shoeing they might nearly all be prevented. The Charlier shoe—defective in the beginning because it did not admit of natural expansion and contraction—was improved upon by an observant and reflective man at Melton, who reduced it to a three-quarter shoe; and this was a great stride to the good.

‘Impecuniosus,’ as he appears to have done with everything that gave any promise of being an improvement, tried it, and found that it really was