At each step the contest is renewed; and while, by an acceleration of pace, its violence is increased, the domination of the tyrant at every stride is infinitesimally diminished in consequence of the nails, which have to bear the whole brunt of the battle, becoming looser and looser, until, by a jump on hard ground, or some other violent concussion, the expansive power of the foot bursts the impaired fetters that have been restraining it, and the poor animal, thus suddenly emancipated from his shoe, leaves it either buried in mud, or, with every nail in its socket, glittering on the grass behind him.
Now, under the system of half-nailing, the battle we have just very faintly described does not take place. The foot can't struggle against nails which don't exist; and accordingly, just as the pliant reed remains erect after the storm that in its immediate neighbourhood has torn up by its roots the sturdy oak, so does the half-nailed shoe, by allowing the horse's foot to expand, perform by gentleness what violence has failed to effect; and therefore it remains, throughout a severe run, hard and fast, where Vulcan placed it.
The Greeks and Romans did not shoe their horses, but, for long journeys, were in the habit of protecting, by leathern sandals, strengthened by iron, and ornamented with silver or gold, their feet, to the substance and shape of which they paid great attention.
"The first thing," wrote Xenophon more than 2200 years ago, "that ought to be looked to in a horse is his foot. For as a house would be of no use, though all the upper parts of it were beautiful, if the lower parts of it had not a proper foundation, so a horse would not be of any use in war if he had tender feet, even though he should have all other good qualities, for his good qualities could not be made of any available use."
In many parts of the world the horse, though severely worked, has never yet been shod. Indeed, in some of the towns in South America it would still cost more money to shoe a horse than was paid to purchase him.
On Roughing Horses.
Although of all axioms no one is more trite and true than that "there is a right and a wrong way of doing everything," yet our readers will hardly be prepared to learn that the Anglo-Saxon on one side of the Atlantic roughs his horse in the right way, and on the other side in the wrong way!
In the United States, and especially in Canada, the surface of which for half a dozen months in every year, white as a bridal plum-cake, is composed of snow or ice, the toe as well as the two heels of each shoe are roughed; and as, in consequence thereof, the horse on every foot stands upon a tripod, his sinews and muscles not only remain in their proper position all the time he is in a stable, but while crossing a level country the sole of each foot when it presses the ground is parallel to its surface.
In ascending a hill the front cog, in descending a hill the two hind cogs, and in traversing a plain the three cogs, of each shoe catch firm hold of the ground; and accordingly the horse, whether in ascent, descent, or on level ground, works in so true a position, and is so efficiently roughed, that out of deep snow he can, at any gradient, gallop suddenly upon what is called "glare ice," almost as hard as iron, without the slightest danger to himself or his rider.