" Trifles make perfectiou; hut perfeotion is no trijie."

ACTHOK 01' " THE HOKSES' �OOT," " STABLES AND .STA11LE I'ITTIXGS,''
"KEMAKXS ON HORSES' TEETH," &C.

LOXJDOX:
LONCtKAK, UKEEN, READKli, ANU DYEK,

1'ATERXOSTEB KOlV.
1877.

EXETER:
■\VILLIAM roLLAKll, PRINTER, NORTH STREET.

Preparing the Foot ... ... ... Par/6 ?

The Shoe ... ... ... ... . . 9

Choosing a Slioe ... ... .. ... 11

Cutting off the Heels ... ... ... ... 12

The Nail Holes... ... ... ... . . 14

Fitting the Shoe ... ... ... ... 18

Filing up the Shoe ... ... , .. 30

Nails ... ... ... ... ... ... 31

Nailing on the Shoe ... ... ... ... 34

Shoeing with Leather ... ... ... ... 38

The Hind Shoe... ... ... ... ... 44

Cutting ... ... ... ... ... 50

Eemoving ... ... ... ... ... 51

General Observations ... ... ... ... 53

I L L U S T E A T IO X S,

Platk 1.
2.
4.
Woon Cuts

Tongs for turning up the Toe of the Shoe

The Shoe nailed to the Foot ...

The same Shoe made transparent

Foot prepared for receiving the Leather

The same Foot shod with Leather

Side view of the Hind Shoe

Grround Surface of the Hind Shoe

. to face Page 8
12
30

2->
32
37
37
13
13
49
4!)

PEEFACE TO THE SECONI) EDITION.

The first issue of the " Plain Treatise on Horse-
Shoeing" lias been so favourably received both at
home and abroad, and has been honoured by such
unmistakable marks of approbation, that I am
induced to publish a second edition in a cheaper
form, in the hope of effecting a further spread of
sound principles in horse-shoeing, by placing it
within the reach of many persons, whose attention
may not hitherto have been directed to the im-
portance of the subject, and to whom it may prove
interesting, as regards the future comfort of their
horses, and also as it affects their own personal
safety, and their pockets.

I have been favoured by so many Communications,
which bear direct testimony to the value of the
system, from all classes of persons ranging from
masters of hounds to country smiths, that its utility
and practicability may be considered as placed
beyond dispute; and if indirect testimony were
needed, I think it might fairly be drawn from the
fact of my having received " The Treatise " by post
from Frankfort, translated into German by an un-
known hand (clearly not by M. Guitard, who
obtained my permission to translate and publish
my work on the Horses' Foot); and also tra " Frank
Forester" having imported it bodily, prefaced by
some most complimentary remarks, into his elabor-
ate work on " �he Horse of America," lately
published at New York.

I can scarcely be expected in a work, which is
chiefly designed for the use of shoeing smiths, to
enter into, or attempt_^to confute] the groundless
fears of those, who are content to form speculative

theories at home, rather than appeal to their reason
at the forge ; indeed the large amount of experience
of the benefit of the system to the Horse's Foot,
which has been obtained by myself and others,
would render such a course unnecessary, even if I
thought it desirable; I have therefore confined
myself entirely fto practical details and directions,
accompanied by such observations upon them, as
are calculated to enable any smith, possessed of a
�willing mind, and ordinary capacity, to make him-
self a good shoer, to the great advantage of himself,
his employers, and their horses.

It was suggested to me several years ago

by divers correspondente, that a plain, practical

treatise on Horse-Shoeing, freed from all other

matters, connected with the soundness of the

horse's foot, would be very aceeptable to many

working smiths, who have neither the time, nor

the inclination to wade through a work, where

what they want to tind, is mixed up with other

things, which do not bear npon their vocation.

To the production of snch a treatise I then set

myself in the hope, that however much I might

fall short of my wishes, I might still in some

degree supply a want, which had long been feit

by many; and I think I may safely point to
B

the present call for a seventh edition of my little
book as evidence, that the want was not an
imaginary one.

The books, at present in use, are written in a
style, that many smiths find it difncult to follow;
my aim therefore shall be to convey the informa-
tion, I have to offer, in the simplest language, I
can command, and such, as the least informed
among them are familiar with. But, before I
enter on the subject of shoeing, I must notice
two things, which we must not only believe, but
act upon, if we ever hope to arrive at really
good shoeing; the first is, that nature bas given,
to what horsemen call a good shaped foot, the
form, best suited to the horse's wants; and the
second is, that the hoof expands, when the horse's
weight is thrown upon it, and contracts, when it
is taken off again; but the mere belief in these
things will be of no use, unless we make the
shoe to fit the foot, and nail it on in such a

3
marmer, as will alloic the hoof to expand and
contract; for we might as well not believe at all,
as believe a thing to be right, and not do it.

Nailing an iron shoe to a living horse's foot is
a very unnatural thing to do, but, as it must be
done, it is our duty to see, how we can do it
with the least, damage to the horse. To sbow
this, I will suppose myself addressing a young
smith, who is about to shoe - his first horse.

You must begin by taking off one of the old
shoes, and I say one, because the others should
always be left on, for the horse to rest upon: all
horses stand quieter on shod feet, than they can
on bare ones; and they are less likely to break
the crust: many tender footed horses are in posi-
tive agony, when forced to rest on a bare foot,
while the opposite one is held up, to be shod.

First raise all the clenches with the buffer, and
if the shoe will not then come off easily, loosen
some of the nails with the punch; but never
tear the shoe off by main force ; it splits the
crust, widens the nail holes, and destroys the hom.

The shoe being off, jon should rasp the edge of
the hoof all round, and take out any stubs, that
may be left in the crust. Then you must pare
out the foot; and this requires both care and
thought. If the horse has a strong foot with
plenty of horn, you should shorten the toe,
lower the heels and crust, and remove the dead
horn from the sole, and also from the corners
between the heels and the bars; the best way
of doing this is to pare the bars down nearly
level with the sole, and then you can get at the
dead horn in the corners more easily. The part
of the bar, which stands up above the sole, would
have been worn away, or broken down, if the shoe
had not kept the hoof off the ground; therefore

you had better always pare it down ; but on no
account ever cut anything away from the sides of
the bars, nor, what is called, "open out the heels";
and be sure, that you never touch the frog with
a knife. Now remember, that there are three
things, which you must never do in paring out
a foot; you must never cut the sides of the bars,
nor open out the heels, nor pare the frog ; and I
will teil you, why you must never do them.

The bars are placed, where they are, to keep
the heels from closing in upon the frog, and, if
you thin them by cutting their sides, you weaken
them, and they can no longer do it, and the foot
begins to contract.

Opening out the heels does exactly the same
thing by weakming the very parts, which nature
placed there, to keep the heels apart. It takes
some time to contract a horse's foot so much, as
to lame him ; and because the contraction comes
on by slow degrees, no one notices it, until the

6
horse falls lame, and then every one wonders,
what can have done it; but very few hit upon
the right cause.

The frog is a thick, springy cushion, whose chief

use is to protect a very important joint, called

the navicular joint, and it is covered by a thin

layer of horn, whicli keeps in the moisture ; and

every time you slice off any of the frog, you lay

bare a part, that was never meant to be exposed

to the air, and it dries, and cracks, and forms rags;

and if these rags are cut off at every fresh shoeing,

the whole frog becomes as dry, and hard, clS eb

board; and the horse gets an incurable disease,

called " navicular disease"; therefore I say, leave

the frog alone ; it will never grow too large; for

long before that would happen, the outer covering

will shell off, and a new, horny covering will be

found beneath; and as to the rags, leave them

alone also, and they will fall off of themselves.

A weak, Hat foot will bear very little paring, or

rasping; the crust of such a foot is sure to be
thin at the toe, and low at the heels, with a thin
and weak sole; therefore the less yoa do to it
the better, beyond making the crust level, where
it is to bear upon the shoe ; this must be done
to all feet, and as the inner quarter, where the re
should be no nails, does not wear away as fast,
as the outer quarter, where the nails are diiven,
you should always place a rasp upon its edge
across the foot, to be quite sure, that the two sides
are level. I have known shoes lost from the inside
qnarter being higher, than the outside; which
caused the foot to bear unevenly on the shoe.
Before you pare out a foot, you should always
think of the state of the roads, and, if they are
dry, and covered with loose stones, or have been
lately repaired, you should take very little off the
sole of any foot, because, if you thin it, the stones
will bruise it; but, when the season is wet, and
the stones worn in, you may pare the sole of a

strong foot a little, until it will yield in a very
slight degree to the heaviest pressure, you can make
upoa it with your thumbs ; but you must never
pare it thin enough to yield to less pressure, than
the very heaviest you can bring to bear upon it.
Plate I. shows a good shaped near fore foot,
pared out ready for shoeing. I have placed letters
against the different parts. The toe reaches from
A to A, the letter B shows the middle of each
quarter, and C marks the heels. You will ob-
serve, that the crust is thicker on the outer
quarter, where the nails should be, than it is on
the inner quarter, where a nail must never be
driven; and you will also see, that the hoof is
not a circle, as many persons suppose it to be,
but is straighter on the inside, than it is on
the outside. D marks the sole, E shows the
upper parts of the bars, pared down nearly level
with the sole. F shows that part of the bars,
which must never be touched by a knife, G marks

the frog, and is placed just over the situation of
the navicular joint. I would advise you to ex-
amine this frog well, because it is, what every
horse's frog should look like, plump, and full, and
even, with a broad, shallow cleft, not split through
at the back part; and, if you shoe your horses
properly, and never pare the frog, it is, what their
frogs will come to in time.

Before I talk about the shoe, I must settle
names for the upper and under surfaces ; because
I fear, I should mislead those, who are not smiths,
if I call the part, that rests upon the ground
" the upper surface," as smiths do; I shall there-
fore call that part of the shoe " the ground sur-
face ;" and the part which goes next the foot,
I shall call " the foot surface;" and then there
can be no mistake, as to which surface I mean.

In turning your store shoes " in the rough,"
you should leave them longer at the heels, than
smiths generally do : we shall see the reason fru-
it, when we come to " fitting the shoe;" and
you should make the web as wide at the heels,
as it is at the toe, and of the same thickness
throughout from the toe back to the heels. The
"fuller" should be carried quite round the shoe
to the heels, and the fullering iron
should have both sides alike. It is
a far better tooi, than the one-sided
iron, in common use, which is gene-
rally so narrow and sharp, that it
not only makes the groove too small
for the heads of the nails to sink
into, but it often splits the shoe. A
narrow groove may look neater, than
^^|||P^ a wide one; but you will find a
wide one much more useful.

The first thing to look to in choosing a shoe
is the kind of foot, you have to deal with. If
the foot be a strong, good shaped one, it will be
an easy matter to find a shoe for it; only take
care, that the Aveb is not too narrow, and that
the shoe is not too light. A light shoe is apt
to bend, before it is half worn out; and the pain,
caused by the pressure of the bent nails against
the tender lining of the hoof, throws the horse
down, and most likely breaks his knees, If the
foot should be flat with a weak, brittle crust,
you must still choose a stout shoe; for a horse
with such a foot could not go at all on a bent
shoe; and the shoe must have a wide web, because
the sole is sure to be thin, and will need plenty
of cover, to protect it.

You must also look at the seating, for, if the
foot is weak and flat, the shoe must be well seated

out, to prevent it pressing upon and bruising the
sole; but, if the foot is strong, and the sole
arched, there need not be more seating, than will
allow the point of a pieker to pass freely round
between the sole and the shoe; otherwise dirt and
small stones will get in and bruise the sole as
much, as the shoe Avould do, if it pressed upon it.

CUTTING OFF THE HEELS.

Having fixed on a shoe to your
mind, begin by cutting off the heels ;
and you will find a half round chisel
a better tooi for the purpose, than a
straight one, because you should never
cut them off square ; if you do, you
will find it impossible to fit the shoe
properly to the heels, and at the
same time keep the web as wide at
the heels, as it is at the toe ; for
one of the corners of the shoe will be

sticking into the ftost, while the othev stands
out beyond the ernst; but, if you cut them off,
as shown in Fig. 1, jou will have no diffi-
culty in bringing eveiy part of the shoe into its
proper place on the foot. Fig. 1, is a near fore
shoe turned in the rough; and the dotted lines
show the direction, in which the heels should
be cut off. The side next the frog should be cut
off from C to B, and the outer corner from A to
B, and then the shoe will look like Fig. 2, which
with a little hammering over the beak of the anvil
will soon come like Fig. 3 : you will see, that the
points, marked A in Fig. 2, have disappeared in
Fig. 3, and that the parts between A and B on
each side have become a portion of the outer
rim of the shoe ; whereby the outer rim is length-
ened, and the inner rim shortened; and there
are no corners left to prevent your fitting the
shoe to the exact sweep of the ernst at the
heels, and you are also enabled to keep the web

as wide at the heels, as it is at the toe. I have
introduced Fig. 3 in this place, becavise it gave
me the opportunity of explaining the reason for
cutting off the heels, as I have directed; but at
this stage of the business it is a good plan
always to leave the quarters and heels rather
straight, and wide apart, until you have fitted the
toe; because it is less trouble to bring them in,
than it is to open them out, after the front has
been fitted.

You must next open the nail holes; but be
sure, that they have been stamped so, as to pass
straight through the shoe, and come out on the
foot surface in the flat part of the web, and not
partly in the flat, and partly in the seating. It
is a very bad plan to make them slant inwards,
as most smiths do; for in diiving a nail, they

have first to pitch the point inwards, then turn
it outwards, driving it all the time ivith the
grain of the crust, and at last they bring it out
high up in the thinnest part of the hoof, and
have the weakest part of the naii for a clench.
Now instead of all this, if you make the holes
straight through the shoe, you have only to
drive the nail straight, and it will go through
the shoe across the grain of the crust, and come
out low down in the thickest part of the hoof,
and give you a strong clench, made out of the
shank of the nail, instead of a weak one made
out of the point. The advantage of straight
holding is, that you are sure never to prick the
foot in driving a nail, and you get a firmer hold
for the shoe; every body knows, that a short
purchase across the line of the strain is stronger,
than a longer one in the direction of the strain.
The soundness of the horse's foot, so far as
shoeing is concerned, depends more upon the num-

ber of nails, and where they are placed, than upon
anything else; for, if the shoe is ever so badly
formed and the nail holes are rightly placed, very
little harm vvill happen to the foot beyond the
loss of a shoe; but, if the shoe is of the best
possible shape, and fitted to the foot in the most
perfect marnier, unless the nail holes are placsd so,
that the foot can expand, it must in the end
become unsound.

The portion of hoof, whicfa expands the most, is
the inner quarter and heel ; you must therefore
leave those parts free from nails; and the way
to do it is never to stamp more than two holes
on the inside of the shoe, one about an inch and
a quarter from the centre of the toe, and the other
about three quarters of an inch behind it. It is
quite clear, that, if you nail both sides of a horse's
hoof to an iron shoe, the hoof will be held fast,
and cannot expand; and when the horse's weight
forces the bones of the foot into the hoof, the

tender lining of the hoof will be squeezed

against the shanks of the nail, and eau se pain

to the horse at every step, he takes. The whole

number of nail holes should never exceed five ;

three on the outside, and two on the inside. I

have proved over and over again, that five nails

will hold on a fore shoe at any kind of work, in

any country, and at any pace. When a shoe

is properly fitted to the foot, and fastened by

five nails, nothing but the smith's pincers can pull

Having cut off the heels, and opened the nail

holes; you must next turn up a clip at the toe ;

every shoe should have one at the toe, it keeps the

shoe steady, and prevents lts being forced back;

but you should never put one at either side, for if

it were put on the inside, it would prevent the

hoof expanding; and on the outside it is worse

than useless, for the nails there are quite suffici�nt

to keep the shoe from working across the foot, and
C

18
the clip will interfere with the placing of one of
the nails, and will destroy more of the crust, than
two nails would have done.

You must always bear in mind, that " fitting
the shoe" means fitting the shoe to the foot, and
not fittino^- the foot to the shoe, as is too offcen
done in many forges.

It is a bad plan for a beginner to try to fit the
whole of the shoe at once; it is much better,
until you have had a good deal of practice, to fit
the toe first, then the quarters, and lastly the
heels ; bnt, before you begin to fit the toe, take a
look at the old shoe, and see, how much of the
toe of it is worn away ; because just so much of
the new shoe should be turned up from the ground,
to remove it out of the line of wear.

We all know, that horses go better and stumble

less in old shoes, than they do in new ones, and
the reason, why they do so, is, because they have
worn away the toe, and no longer jar the foot by
striking the toe against hard substances in the
road. A new shoe, turned up at the toe, is the
same thing to the horse, as an old one, worn
down; but with this great difference to his comfort,
that he is easy upon the new one, from the time
it is first put on, whereas he was never easy upon
the old one, until he had worn away the toe.

When a horse wears his shoe hard at the toe,
it is the custom of most smiths to weid a lump
of steel on to it, to make him longer in wearing it
away; but this only increases the jar to his foot;
whereas turning up the toe mak es the shoe last quite
as long, and saves the horse from a great deal of
unnecessary suffering. A strong foot will bear
the toe to be turned up a good deal; but a flat
foot is always weak at the toe, and cannot bear
the removal of any of the horn from it; the best

way therefore of dealing with a very flat foot is
to fit the shoe to it without turning up the toe,
then to make the toe of the shoe red hot, and
place it in the vice with the ground surface to-
wards you, and in tlmt position rasp the iron away
from that part of the toe, which would have rested
on the ground ; the horse will travel safer and better
for it, and the loss of a little iron from the toe
will not cause the shoe to wear out faster ; for a
flat-footed horse will generally wear away the heels
of a shoe, long before lie has wom out the toe.
You can make a very handy tooi for turning
up the toe of a shoe by " stmtting " a piece of iron
five inches long and one inch broad, crosswise on
to each blade of a pair of smith's tongs; with
this tooi you will be able to grasp both limbs of
the shoe a,t once, and not only turn up the toe
over the end of the anvil, but restore the seating
at the toe without bending the shoe, or putting
it out of shape ; which you could not do -without

a great deal of trouble by holding one limb at
a time in common tongs. The accompanying
figure shows you this tooi in use with the ground
surface of the shoe uppermost, for turning up the

toe, and you have only to reverse it, keeping the
same grasp of the shoe, and the foot surface will
come uppermost, ready to have the seating made good.

I will now suppose, that you have turned up

the toe of the shoe, shortened the toe of the hoof,
rasped the crust, to receive the turned up shoe,
and cut a notch for the clip; you had better next,
until you have gained experience in fitting a shoe,
"spring" the heels, to prevent their buming the
back part of the crust, while you are fitting the
shoe to the fore part; but you must bring them
down again, before you fit the quarters and heels,
and never leave them "sprang," when the shoe
is nailed on.

You must now put the toe of the shoe in the
fire, and make it hot enough to mark the uneven
portions of horn, which should be lightly removed
by the rasp, until an even bed is left for the
shoe to rest upon. You need not fear to bnrn the
toe of a strong foot; it can do no harm; but
a weak foot with a thin crust of course will not
bear much burning, still the shoe should be made
hot enough to scorch the horn, and show, where
the hoof fails to bear upon it,

When the toe is once properly fitted, there will
be very little trouble in fitting the quarters and
heels; you have only to bring them in over the
beak of the anvil, until the edge of the shoe ranges
with the edge of the hoof back to the furthest
point of the heel on each side, and continue the
same sweep, until it nearly touches the frog : there
must be none of the shoe left sticking out beyond
the hoof either behind, or at the sides of the heels.

I know, that a great many smiths are very fond
of, what are called " open heeled shoes," which
means shoes with straight heels, wide apart, and
projecting beyond the hoof both behind, and at the
sides; and the only reason, I have ever heard in
favour of such shoes, is a very bad one, viz. : that
the horse requires more support at the heels, than
he gets from the hoof; but you may depend upon
it, that nature has made no mistake about it; and
if the horse really wanted more support, than he
gets from the heels of the hoof, he would have had

it; but I think, I shall prove to you, that this kind
of shoe instead of being a benefit to the horse is a
positive evil to him; it interferes with his action,
and exposes his sole and frog to serious injury
from stones in the road ; and the projecting por-
tions of the shoe become ledges, for stiff ground to
cling to, and px�l the shoe off, More shoes are
lost through these mischievous projections at the
heels, than from all other causes put together.

Let us see, how it is, that these projecting heels
interfere with the horse's action. It is not ne-
cessary for this purpose to trouble you "with the
anatomy of the foot, but merely to state, that all
its parts are joined to each other in such a man-
ner, as to form one great spring, and that the foot
is joined to the leg by the pastern and coronet
bones in a direction slanting forward, which brings
the foot a little in advance of the leg, and places
the heels in front of a line, dropped from the
centre of the fetlock joint to the ground.

1 The shank or cannon bone.

4 The sessamoid bone.

A. The point where the weight

of the horse would fall on
the upper end of the pastern
bone.

B. The point where a line dropped

from A would meet the

C. The heel of the hoof.

Now it is clear, that the weight of the horse
will fall upon the upper end of this slanting pas-
tern bone at every step, and the bone having a
joint at each end of it, will sink to the weight,
thus thrown upon it, and break the force of the
shock both to the leg and foot; but, if the heels
of the shoe are longer, than the heels of the hoof,
the projecting pieces of iron will meet the ground
further back, than the natural heels would have

done, and will check the sinking of the pastern
bone, just as an upright pastern does, by bringing
the heels too much under the centre oi the weight,
which causes the horse to step short, and go
stumpy.

If you wish to avoid these evils, and keep the
horse's shoes on his feet, you must bring in the
heels, and let the shoe strictly follow the form of
the foot, whatever that form may be.

The part of the foot, that needs protection from
injury more, than any other, is the " navicular joint,"
which rests upon the frog about an inch, or an inch
and a quarter behind its point; and the only way,
to protect it, is to keep the web of the shoe as wide
at the heels, as it is at the toe, and to bring in the
heels, until they nearly touch the frog ; by so doing
you lessen the opening of the shoe, and the web
of one side, or the other will strike upon the stones
in the road, and save the frog from coming with
full force upon them. But open-heeled shoes leave

27
the frog entirely exposed to very large stones,
and are the cause of many a severe bruise to the
navicular joint, which lays the foundation of future
incurable lameness.

I have offcen seen shoes so wide at the heels, that
I have placed my clenched hand within the opening
of the shoe without touching either side of it; and
where my fist could go, a stone, as large, could go.

Another great advantage of bringing in the heels,
and fitting the shoe close is the certainty, that the
horse will not cast his shoe : you leave nothing for
stiff" ground to lay hold of, and if you slightly
bevel the inside quarter and heel of the shoe from
the foot downwards, as is sometimes done to pre-
vent a horse cutting, no ground in the world can
pull it off; for the foot, expanding to the weight
of the horse, enlarges the hole, made by the shoe,
and leaves more space for the shoe to come out of,
than it made for itself to go in at; but, if the
shoe projects beyond the hoof at any part, and more

particularly at the heels, the foot cannot fill the
hole, made by the shoe, and stiff clay will cling
round the projection, and pull the shoe off.

Having so far fmished the shoe; place it on the
face of the anvil with the toe hanging over the
side, and see, that the foot surface of the quarters
and heels are quite level; then make it hot enough
to scorch the hoof all round, and form a bed for
itself; without this it would be next to impossible
to insure close fitting, for, after you have made
the foot as level, as you can with the rasp, and
the shoe as level, as you can on the anvil, the
chances are very much against their fitting like two
planed boards, as they ought to do ; and the quantity
of horn, to be thus removed, is so small, as not to
be worth thinking about. It is a mistake to sup-
pose, that a hot shoe injures the hoof; it does
nothing of the kind, and you cannot possibly fit
a shoe properly without making it hot. I would
not have you burn a shoe into its place on the

29
foot, before you had taken care to make both the
foot and the shoe as level, as you could, but, when
you have done that, the small quantity of burning,
that is necessary to make them come close together,
can do no harst, I have said before, that a weak,
thin crust will not bear as much heat, as a strong
one, and that the shoe should be applied less hot
to it, nevertlieless it must be scorched, that you
may be sure, the shoe fits properly.

When you have cooled the shoe, you should "back
hole" it, that is, make free openings on the foot
surface for the nails to pass through; and these
openings should be large enough to take the shanks
of the nails, and not merely the thin part towards
their points, and mind, that in opening them, you do
not make the holes incline inwards; but take great
care to make them pass straight through the shoe.

Before you "file up" the shoe, hold it firmly in
its place on the foot with both hands, and examine
carefully, whether any liglit appears between the

f'oot and the shoe, and if you should percieve any,
alter the shoe at once; for the crust must bear
upon the shoe all round, before you can say, that
the shoe fits the foot, as it ought to do.

Much time is often wasted in polishing the shoe
with the file, before it is nailed on; but all, that
is really needed, is to remove the burs about
the nail holes, file off the sharp edges of the shoe,
and round the heels; taking care to apply the
file hard to that part of both heels, which comes
next to the frog, so as to slant it from the ground
upward away from the frog; but you must be
careful not to make the ground surface of the web
at the heels narrower in so doing; Fig. 1 shows
the foot surface, and Fig. 2 the ground surface of
a near fore shoe.

In Fig. 1 A is the clip at the toe, B 1 the outer

quarter, B 2 the inner quarter, C 1 the outer heel,
C 2 the inner heel, D the seating, E the flat sur-
face for the crust to bear upon, F the heels,
bevelled off away from the frog.

In Fig. 2 A is the toe, turned up out of the
line of wear, B 1 the outer, and B 2 the inner
quarter, C 1 the outer, and C 2 the inner heel,
D the ground surface of the web, as wide at the
heels, as it is at the toe, E the fuUer, carried all
round the shoe, F the inner quarter and heel
slightly bevelled from the foot to the ground.

I must say a few words about the nails, before
we come to nailing on the shoe; because the nails,
in common use, Fig. 1, are as badly formed, as they
well can be; their short, wedge-shaped heads,
wide at the top, «, and narrow at the bottom,
b, with shanks springing suddenly from the head

without any shoulder, and ending in a long, nar-

row point, c, are most unsafe to trust a shoe to.

The head of such a nail can never perfectly fill

the hole in the shoe, for the wide tops gets tied

either in the fuller, or the upper part of the hole,

before the lower part has reached the bottom; and

when the shoe is about half worn out, the head of

the nail is gone, and the shank alone is left in the

hole, to keep the shoe on. Now

the nails, I advise you to use,

and you had better always make

them for yourself, Fig. 2, should

have heads, which are straight-

sided at the upper part, d, and

gradually die away at the lower

part into the shank, so as to

form a shoulder, e, which will

entirely block the bottom of the

nail hole; the point �, at the

end of the shank should be short and broad, to

enable you to form good stout clenches, which will
assist in keeping the shoe firmly in its place, until
it is quite worn out.

If you compare the head of the nail Fig. 2 at
d and e with the head of the nail Fig. 1 at a and
b, you will at once see, that the head of Fig. 2 is
better calculated to fill every part of the nail-hole
than the head of Fig. 1 with its broad top and
narrow neck could possibly do ; and if you com-
pare the points of the two nails at f and c, you will
readily perceive which promises the firmer clench.

Your nails should be made of the very best nail
rods, you can get, and they shoidd not be cooled
too quickly, but left spread about to cool by
degrees; the longer in reason they are cooling,
the tougher they will become; they should n�t
however be allowed to lie in a heap to cool; the
mass keeps in the heat too long, and makes them
almost as brittle, as if they had been cooled too
suddenly.

NAILING ON THE SHOE.

If the uails are of a proper shape, the holes
straight through the shoe, and the shoe fits the
foot, it requires very little skill to nail it on;
only put the point of the nail in the middle of
the hole, keep the nail upright, and drive it straight,
it must come out in the right place, low down in
the crust, withoxit the possibility of wounding the
sensitive parts of the foot. The shank of the nail
will pass straight through the substance of the
crust, and gain a good, firm hold of it, leaving
you the strongest part, froni which to form a
clench. The clenches should be short and broad,
and not thinned by rasping away any of their sub-
stance, but hammered at once into a slight notch,
made in the hoof under each; and the rasp should
never be allowed to go over them, after they have
been hammered down; for the sharp steel rasp is

almost sure to cut through the soft iron clench,

just where it turns down, and leave the appeavance

of a clench, when in truth it has been cut off at

the bend, and the loose end only remains, buried

in the notch in the hoof. You will do good by

rasping bdoiv the clenches, because you will there-

by remove the broken horn, that the former nails

have destroyed; but on no accouTit ever use the

rasp above the clenches; if you do, you will tear

off the thin outer covering of the hoof, which is

placed there to prevent the escape of the natural

moisture, and to keep the horn tough; and, if you

rasp it away, you will expos� the horn to the air,

and it will soon become dry and brittle, and make

the hoof difficult to nail to. This thin covering

of the hoof is like the shining covering of a man's

finger nail; and most people know from experience,

how dry and brittle, and easily broken a finger

nail becomes, when by any accident it loses that

Fig. 1 represents the ground surface of a near
fore foot with the shoe nailed on by five nails,
and shows, how the shoe should look in its place
on the foot; Fig. 2 represents the same shoe,
made transparent, so that the parts of the foot,
that are covered by it, are seen through it. A
shows the erust, B the bars, and C the heels of
the hoof, supported by the shoe. By this plan
of shoeing, the whole of the inner quarter and
heel are left free, to expand; and I have inva-
riably found in consequence of this freedom of
expansion, that corns, however long they may have
existed in the feet, disappear altogether, after a
horse has been shod a few times in this manner;
and never return, while the same plan of shoeing
is continued.

I may here observe, that the nature of a corn
in a horse's foot is very little understood. It is
generally supposed to resemble a corn on a man's
foot, and like it, to be caused by pressure from

a shoe ; whereas it is a totally different thing,
and is caused in a totally different manner. It
is a bruise of the sensitive sole, which lies above
the horny sole, and is not caused by the heel of
the shoe at all, hut by the heel of the coffin bone,
which is forced into the hoof by the weight of
the horse, when in action ; and, as the hoof from
bad shoeing is not able to expand and make room
for it, some of the small blood-vessels become
wounded, and the blood, which escapes from them,
filters through the horny sole, and at last shows
itself on its under surface at the corner of the in-
ner heel; leading most persons to believe, that the
bruise b�gctn there, whereas in truth it ends there.

SHOEING WI�H LEATHER.



		IV,

	I L L U S T E A T IO X S,

Platk 1. 2. 4. Woon Cuts Fullering Iron Half-round Chisel Tongs for turning up the Toe of the Shoe Pastern and Hoof Nails The Shoe nailed to the Foot ... The same Shoe made transparent Foot prepared for receiving the Leather The same Foot shod with Leather Side view of the Hind Shoe Grround Surface of the Hind Shoe
			. to face Page 8 12 30 Paf/e 10 12 21 2-> 32 37 37 13 13 49 4!)



		*'.'rl*

	without any shoulder, and ending in a long, nar- row point, c, are most unsafe to trust a shoe to. The head of such a nail can never perfectly fill the hole in the shoe, for the wide tops gets tied either in the fuller, or the upper part of the hole, before the lower part has reached the bottom; and when the shoe is about half worn out, the head of the nail is gone, and the shank alone is left in the hole, to keep the shoe on. Now
				FIC .2.
			Fl Cl.

the nails, I advise you to use, and you had better always make them for yourself, Fig. 2, should have heads, which are straight- sided at the upper part, d, and gradually die away at the lower part into the shank, so as to form a shoulder, e, which will entirely block the bottom of the nail hole; the point �, at the end of the shank should be short and broad, to



			iii.

		CONTENTS. Preparing the Foot ... ... ... Par/6 ? The Shoe ... ... ... ... . . 9 Choosing a Slioe ... ... .. ... 11 Cutting off the Heels ... ... ... ... 12 The Nail Holes... ... ... ... . . 14 Fitting the Shoe ... ... ... ... 18 Filing up the Shoe ... ... , .. 30 Nails ... ... ... ... ... ... 31 Nailing on the Shoe ... ... ... ... 34 Shoeing with Leather ... ... ... ... 38 The Hind Shoe... ... ... ... ... 44 Cutting ... ... ... ... ... 50 Eemoving ... ... ... ... ... 51 General Observations ... ... ... ... 53



			VI.

		I have been favoured by so many Communications, which bear direct testimony to the value of the system, from all classes of persons ranging from masters of hounds to country smiths, that its utility and practicability may be considered as placed beyond dispute; and if indirect testimony were needed, I think it might fairly be drawn from the fact of my having received " The Treatise " by post from Frankfort, translated into German by an un- known hand (clearly not by M. Guitard, who obtained my permission to translate and publish my work on the Horses' Foot); and also tra " Frank Forester" having imported it bodily, prefaced by some most complimentary remarks, into his elabor- ate work on " �he Horse of America," lately published at New York. I can scarcely be expected in a work, which is chiefly designed for the use of shoeing smiths, to enter into, or attempt_^to confute] the groundless fears of those, who are content to form speculative



		Vil.

theories at home, rather than appeal to their reason at the forge ; indeed the large amount of experience of the benefit of the system to the Horse's Foot, which has been obtained by myself and others, would render such a course unnecessary, even if I thought it desirable; I have therefore confined myself entirely fto practical details and directions, accompanied by such observations upon them, as are calculated to enable any smith, possessed of a �willing mind, and ordinary capacity, to make him- self a good shoer, to the great advantage of himself, his employers, and their horses.

	Dixfleld, Exoter, June 18th, 1858.



			HOESE-SHOEING.

		It was suggested to me several years ago by divers correspondente, that a plain, practical treatise on Horse-Shoeing, freed from all other matters, connected with the soundness of the horse's foot, would be very aceeptable to many working smiths, who have neither the time, nor the inclination to wade through a work, where what they want to tind, is mixed up with other things, which do not bear npon their vocation. To the production of snch a treatise I then set myself in the hope, that however much I might fall short of my wishes, I might still in some degree supply a want, which had long been feit by many; and I think I may safely point to B



		2 the present call for a seventh edition of my little book as evidence, that the want was not an imaginary one. The books, at present in use, are written in a style, that many smiths find it difncult to follow; my aim therefore shall be to convey the informa- tion, I have to offer, in the simplest language, I can command, and such, as the least informed among them are familiar with. But, before I enter on the subject of shoeing, I must notice two things, which we must not only believe, but act upon, if we ever hope to arrive at really good shoeing; the first is, that nature bas given, to what horsemen call a good shaped foot, the form, best suited to the horse's wants; and the second is, that the hoof expands, when the horse's weight is thrown upon it, and contracts, when it is taken off again; but the mere belief in these things will be of no use, unless we make the shoe to fit the foot, and nail it on in such a



		4 First raise all the clenches with the buffer, and if the shoe will not then come off easily, loosen some of the nails with the punch; but never tear the shoe off by main force ; it splits the crust, widens the nail holes, and destroys the hom. The shoe being off, jon should rasp the edge of the hoof all round, and take out any stubs, that may be left in the crust. Then you must pare out the foot; and this requires both care and thought. If the horse has a strong foot with plenty of horn, you should shorten the toe, lower the heels and crust, and remove the dead horn from the sole, and also from the corners between the heels and the bars; the best way of doing this is to pare the bars down nearly level with the sole, and then you can get at the dead horn in the corners more easily. The part of the bar, which stands up above the sole, would have been worn away, or broken down, if the shoe had not kept the hoof off the ground; therefore



		5 you had better always pare it down ; but on no account ever cut anything away from the sides of the bars, nor, what is called, "open out the heels"; and be sure, that you never touch the frog with a knife. Now remember, that there are three things, which you must never do in paring out a foot; you must never cut the sides of the bars, nor open out the heels, nor pare the frog ; and I will teil you, why you must never do them. The bars are placed, where they are, to keep the heels from closing in upon the frog, and, if you thin them by cutting their sides, you weaken them, and they can no longer do it, and the foot begins to contract. Opening out the heels does exactly the same thing by weakming the very parts, which nature placed there, to keep the heels apart. It takes some time to contract a horse's foot so much, as to lame him ; and because the contraction comes on by slow degrees, no one notices it, until the



		7 rasping; the crust of such a foot is sure to be thin at the toe, and low at the heels, with a thin and weak sole; therefore the less yoa do to it the better, beyond making the crust level, where it is to bear upon the shoe ; this must be done to all feet, and as the inner quarter, where the re should be no nails, does not wear away as fast, as the outer quarter, where the nails are diiven, you should always place a rasp upon its edge across the foot, to be quite sure, that the two sides are level. I have known shoes lost from the inside qnarter being higher, than the outside; which caused the foot to bear unevenly on the shoe. Before you pare out a foot, you should always think of the state of the roads, and, if they are dry, and covered with loose stones, or have been lately repaired, you should take very little off the sole of any foot, because, if you thin it, the stones will bruise it; but, when the season is wet, and the stones worn in, you may pare the sole of a



		8 strong foot a little, until it will yield in a very slight degree to the heaviest pressure, you can make upoa it with your thumbs ; but you must never pare it thin enough to yield to less pressure, than the very heaviest you can bring to bear upon it. Plate I. shows a good shaped near fore foot, pared out ready for shoeing. I have placed letters against the different parts. The toe reaches from A to A, the letter B shows the middle of each quarter, and C marks the heels. You will ob- serve, that the crust is thicker on the outer quarter, where the nails should be, than it is on the inner quarter, where a nail must never be driven; and you will also see, that the hoof is not a circle, as many persons suppose it to be, but is straighter on the inside, than it is on the outside. D marks the sole, E shows the upper parts of the bars, pared down nearly level with the sole. F shows that part of the bars, which must never be touched by a knife, G marks



		9 the frog, and is placed just over the situation of the navicular joint. I would advise you to ex- amine this frog well, because it is, what every horse's frog should look like, plump, and full, and even, with a broad, shallow cleft, not split through at the back part; and, if you shoe your horses properly, and never pare the frog, it is, what their frogs will come to in time. THE SHOE. Before I talk about the shoe, I must settle names for the upper and under surfaces ; because I fear, I should mislead those, who are not smiths, if I call the part, that rests upon the ground " the upper surface," as smiths do; I shall there- fore call that part of the shoe " the ground sur- face ;" and the part which goes next the foot, I shall call " the foot surface;" and then there can be no mistake, as to which surface I mean.



	PIATE 1

		B
B		B
B



		PLATE 11.



		PLATE Hl.

			B 2



		10 In turning your store shoes " in the rough," you should leave them longer at the heels, than smiths generally do : we shall see the reason fru- it, when we come to " fitting the shoe;" and you should make the web as wide at the heels, as it is at the toe, and of the same thickness throughout from the toe back to the heels. The "fuller" should be carried quite round the shoe to the heels, and the fullering iron should have both sides alike. It is a far better tooi, than the one-sided iron, in common use, which is gene- rally so narrow and sharp, that it not only makes the groove too small for the heads of the nails to sink into, but it often splits the shoe. A narrow groove may look neater, than ^^\|\|\|P^ a wide one; but you will find a wide one much more useful.



			11

		CHOOSING A SHOE. The first thing to look to in choosing a shoe is the kind of foot, you have to deal with. If the foot be a strong, good shaped one, it will be an easy matter to find a shoe for it; only take care, that the Aveb is not too narrow, and that the shoe is not too light. A light shoe is apt to bend, before it is half worn out; and the pain, caused by the pressure of the bent nails against the tender lining of the hoof, throws the horse down, and most likely breaks his knees, If the foot should be flat with a weak, brittle crust, you must still choose a stout shoe; for a horse with such a foot could not go at all on a bent shoe; and the shoe must have a wide web, because the sole is sure to be thin, and will need plenty of cover, to protect it. You must also look at the seating, for, if the foot is weak and flat, the shoe must be well seated



		12 out, to prevent it pressing upon and bruising the sole; but, if the foot is strong, and the sole arched, there need not be more seating, than will allow the point of a pieker to pass freely round between the sole and the shoe; otherwise dirt and small stones will get in and bruise the sole as much, as the shoe Avould do, if it pressed upon it.

			CUTTING OFF THE HEELS. Having fixed on a shoe to your mind, begin by cutting off the heels ; and you will find a half round chisel a better tooi for the purpose, than a straight one, because you should never cut them off square ; if you do, you will find it impossible to fit the shoe properly to the heels, and at the same time keep the web as wide at the heels, as it is at the toe ; for one of the corners of the shoe will be



		13 sticking into the ftost, while the othev stands out beyond the ernst; but, if you cut them off, as shown in Fig. 1, jou will have no diffi- culty in bringing eveiy part of the shoe into its proper place on the foot. Fig. 1, is a near fore shoe turned in the rough; and the dotted lines show the direction, in which the heels should be cut off. The side next the frog should be cut off from C to B, and the outer corner from A to B, and then the shoe will look like Fig. 2, which with a little hammering over the beak of the anvil will soon come like Fig. 3 : you will see, that the points, marked A in Fig. 2, have disappeared in Fig. 3, and that the parts between A and B on each side have become a portion of the outer rim of the shoe ; whereby the outer rim is length- ened, and the inner rim shortened; and there are no corners left to prevent your fitting the shoe to the exact sweep of the ernst at the heels, and you are also enabled to keep the web



		14 as wide at the heels, as it is at the toe. I have introduced Fig. 3 in this place, becavise it gave me the opportunity of explaining the reason for cutting off the heels, as I have directed; but at this stage of the business it is a good plan always to leave the quarters and heels rather straight, and wide apart, until you have fitted the toe; because it is less trouble to bring them in, than it is to open them out, after the front has been fitted. THE NAIL HOLES. You must next open the nail holes; but be sure, that they have been stamped so, as to pass straight through the shoe, and come out on the foot surface in the flat part of the web, and not partly in the flat, and partly in the seating. It is a very bad plan to make them slant inwards, as most smiths do; for in diiving a nail, they



		15 have first to pitch the point inwards, then turn it outwards, driving it all the time ivith the grain of the crust, and at last they bring it out high up in the thinnest part of the hoof, and have the weakest part of the naii for a clench. Now instead of all this, if you make the holes straight through the shoe, you have only to drive the nail straight, and it will go through the shoe across the grain of the crust, and come out low down in the thickest part of the hoof, and give you a strong clench, made out of the shank of the nail, instead of a weak one made out of the point. The advantage of straight holding is, that you are sure never to prick the foot in driving a nail, and you get a firmer hold for the shoe; every body knows, that a short purchase across the line of the strain is stronger, than a longer one in the direction of the strain. The soundness of the horse's foot, so far as shoeing is concerned, depends more upon the num-



		16 ber of nails, and where they are placed, than upon anything else; for, if the shoe is ever so badly formed and the nail holes are rightly placed, very little harm vvill happen to the foot beyond the loss of a shoe; but, if the shoe is of the best possible shape, and fitted to the foot in the most perfect marnier, unless the nail holes are placsd so, that the foot can expand, it must in the end become unsound. The portion of hoof, whicfa expands the most, is the inner quarter and heel ; you must therefore leave those parts free from nails; and the way to do it is never to stamp more than two holes on the inside of the shoe, one about an inch and a quarter from the centre of the toe, and the other about three quarters of an inch behind it. It is quite clear, that, if you nail both sides of a horse's hoof to an iron shoe, the hoof will be held fast, and cannot expand; and when the horse's weight forces the bones of the foot into the hoof, the



		17 tender lining of the hoof will be squeezed against the shanks of the nail, and eau se pain to the horse at every step, he takes. The whole number of nail holes should never exceed five ; three on the outside, and two on the inside. I have proved over and over again, that five nails will hold on a fore shoe at any kind of work, in any country, and at any pace. When a shoe is properly fitted to the foot, and fastened by five nails, nothing but the smith's pincers can pull it off. Having cut off the heels, and opened the nail holes; you must next turn up a clip at the toe ; every shoe should have one at the toe, it keeps the shoe steady, and prevents lts being forced back; but you should never put one at either side, for if it were put on the inside, it would prevent the hoof expanding; and on the outside it is worse than useless, for the nails there are quite suffici�nt to keep the shoe from working across the foot, and C



		19 less in old shoes, than they do in new ones, and the reason, why they do so, is, because they have worn away the toe, and no longer jar the foot by striking the toe against hard substances in the road. A new shoe, turned up at the toe, is the same thing to the horse, as an old one, worn down; but with this great difference to his comfort, that he is easy upon the new one, from the time it is first put on, whereas he was never easy upon the old one, until he had worn away the toe. When a horse wears his shoe hard at the toe, it is the custom of most smiths to weid a lump of steel on to it, to make him longer in wearing it away; but this only increases the jar to his foot; whereas turning up the toe mak es the shoe last quite as long, and saves the horse from a great deal of unnecessary suffering. A strong foot will bear the toe to be turned up a good deal; but a flat foot is always weak at the toe, and cannot bear the removal of any of the horn from it; the best



		20 way therefore of dealing with a very flat foot is to fit the shoe to it without turning up the toe, then to make the toe of the shoe red hot, and place it in the vice with the ground surface to- wards you, and in tlmt position rasp the iron away from that part of the toe, which would have rested on the ground ; the horse will travel safer and better for it, and the loss of a little iron from the toe will not cause the shoe to wear out faster ; for a flat-footed horse will generally wear away the heels of a shoe, long before lie has wom out the toe. You can make a very handy tooi for turning up the toe of a shoe by " stmtting " a piece of iron five inches long and one inch broad, crosswise on to each blade of a pair of smith's tongs; with this tooi you will be able to grasp both limbs of the shoe a,t once, and not only turn up the toe over the end of the anvil, but restore the seating at the toe without bending the shoe, or putting it out of shape ; which you could not do -without



	21 a great deal of trouble by holding one limb at a time in common tongs. The accompanying figure shows you this tooi in use with the ground surface of the shoe uppermost, for turning up the

toe, and you have only to reverse it, keeping the same grasp of the shoe, and the foot surface will come uppermost, ready to have the seating made good.

		I will now suppose, that you have turned up



		' 22 the toe of the shoe, shortened the toe of the hoof, rasped the crust, to receive the turned up shoe, and cut a notch for the clip; you had better next, until you have gained experience in fitting a shoe, "spring" the heels, to prevent their buming the back part of the crust, while you are fitting the shoe to the fore part; but you must bring them down again, before you fit the quarters and heels, and never leave them "sprang," when the shoe is nailed on. You must now put the toe of the shoe in the fire, and make it hot enough to mark the uneven portions of horn, which should be lightly removed by the rasp, until an even bed is left for the shoe to rest upon. You need not fear to bnrn the toe of a strong foot; it can do no harm; but a weak foot with a thin crust of course will not bear much burning, still the shoe should be made hot enough to scorch the horn, and show, where the hoof fails to bear upon it,



		23 When the toe is once properly fitted, there will be very little trouble in fitting the quarters and heels; you have only to bring them in over the beak of the anvil, until the edge of the shoe ranges with the edge of the hoof back to the furthest point of the heel on each side, and continue the same sweep, until it nearly touches the frog : there must be none of the shoe left sticking out beyond the hoof either behind, or at the sides of the heels. I know, that a great many smiths are very fond of, what are called " open heeled shoes," which means shoes with straight heels, wide apart, and projecting beyond the hoof both behind, and at the sides; and the only reason, I have ever heard in favour of such shoes, is a very bad one, viz. : that the horse requires more support at the heels, than he gets from the hoof; but you may depend upon it, that nature has made no mistake about it; and if the horse really wanted more support, than he gets from the heels of the hoof, he would have had



		24 it; but I think, I shall prove to you, that this kind of shoe instead of being a benefit to the horse is a positive evil to him; it interferes with his action, and exposes his sole and frog to serious injury from stones in the road ; and the projecting por- tions of the shoe become ledges, for stiff ground to cling to, and px�l the shoe off, More shoes are lost through these mischievous projections at the heels, than from all other causes put together. Let us see, how it is, that these projecting heels interfere with the horse's action. It is not ne- cessary for this purpose to trouble you "with the anatomy of the foot, but merely to state, that all its parts are joined to each other in such a man- ner, as to form one great spring, and that the foot is joined to the leg by the pastern and coronet bones in a direction slanting forward, which brings the foot a little in advance of the leg, and places the heels in front of a line, dropped from the centre of the fetlock joint to the ground.



		25 1 The shank or cannon bone. 2 The pastern bone. 3 The coronet bone. 4 The sessamoid bone. A. The point where the weight of the horse would fall on the upper end of the pastern bone. B. The point where a line dropped from A would meet the ground. c q C. The heel of the hoof. Now it is clear, that the weight of the horse will fall upon the upper end of this slanting pas- tern bone at every step, and the bone having a joint at each end of it, will sink to the weight, thus thrown upon it, and break the force of the shock both to the leg and foot; but, if the heels of the shoe are longer, than the heels of the hoof, the projecting pieces of iron will meet the ground further back, than the natural heels would have



		26 done, and will check the sinking of the pastern bone, just as an upright pastern does, by bringing the heels too much under the centre oi the weight, which causes the horse to step short, and go stumpy. If you wish to avoid these evils, and keep the horse's shoes on his feet, you must bring in the heels, and let the shoe strictly follow the form of the foot, whatever that form may be. The part of the foot, that needs protection from injury more, than any other, is the " navicular joint," which rests upon the frog about an inch, or an inch and a quarter behind its point; and the only way, to protect it, is to keep the web of the shoe as wide at the heels, as it is at the toe, and to bring in the heels, until they nearly touch the frog ; by so doing you lessen the opening of the shoe, and the web of one side, or the other will strike upon the stones in the road, and save the frog from coming with full force upon them. But open-heeled shoes leave



		28 particularly at the heels, the foot cannot fill the hole, made by the shoe, and stiff clay will cling round the projection, and pull the shoe off. Having so far fmished the shoe; place it on the face of the anvil with the toe hanging over the side, and see, that the foot surface of the quarters and heels are quite level; then make it hot enough to scorch the hoof all round, and form a bed for itself; without this it would be next to impossible to insure close fitting, for, after you have made the foot as level, as you can with the rasp, and the shoe as level, as you can on the anvil, the chances are very much against their fitting like two planed boards, as they ought to do ; and the quantity of horn, to be thus removed, is so small, as not to be worth thinking about. It is a mistake to sup- pose, that a hot shoe injures the hoof; it does nothing of the kind, and you cannot possibly fit a shoe properly without making it hot. I would not have you burn a shoe into its place on the



		30 f'oot and the shoe, and if you should percieve any, alter the shoe at once; for the crust must bear upon the shoe all round, before you can say, that the shoe fits the foot, as it ought to do. FILING UP THE SHOE. Much time is often wasted in polishing the shoe with the file, before it is nailed on; but all, that is really needed, is to remove the burs about the nail holes, file off the sharp edges of the shoe, and round the heels; taking care to apply the file hard to that part of both heels, which comes next to the frog, so as to slant it from the ground upward away from the frog; but you must be careful not to make the ground surface of the web at the heels narrower in so doing; Fig. 1 shows the foot surface, and Fig. 2 the ground surface of a near fore shoe. In Fig. 1 A is the clip at the toe, B 1 the outer



		31 quarter, B 2 the inner quarter, C 1 the outer heel, C 2 the inner heel, D the seating, E the flat sur- face for the crust to bear upon, F the heels, bevelled off away from the frog. In Fig. 2 A is the toe, turned up out of the line of wear, B 1 the outer, and B 2 the inner quarter, C 1 the outer, and C 2 the inner heel, D the ground surface of the web, as wide at the heels, as it is at the toe, E the fuUer, carried all round the shoe, F the inner quarter and heel slightly bevelled from the foot to the ground. NAILS. I must say a few words about the nails, before we come to nailing on the shoe; because the nails, in common use, Fig. 1, are as badly formed, as they well can be; their short, wedge-shaped heads, wide at the top, «, and narrow at the bottom, b, with shanks springing suddenly from the head



		33 enable you to form good stout clenches, which will assist in keeping the shoe firmly in its place, until it is quite worn out. If you compare the head of the nail Fig. 2 at d and e with the head of the nail Fig. 1 at a and b, you will at once see, that the head of Fig. 2 is better calculated to fill every part of the nail-hole than the head of Fig. 1 with its broad top and narrow neck could possibly do ; and if you com- pare the points of the two nails at f and c, you will readily perceive which promises the firmer clench. Your nails should be made of the very best nail rods, you can get, and they shoidd not be cooled too quickly, but left spread about to cool by degrees; the longer in reason they are cooling, the tougher they will become; they should n�t however be allowed to lie in a heap to cool; the mass keeps in the heat too long, and makes them almost as brittle, as if they had been cooled too suddenly.