16 Trafalgar Square,
London, S.W.
THE
ART OF HORSE-SHOEING
A MANUAL FOR FARRIERS.
[CHAPTER I.]
Farriery is the art of shoeing horses, and can only be properly learned by a long practical experience in the shoeing-forge. If the foot of the horse were not a living object perhaps the training obtained in the forge would be all that was necessary for efficient workmanship. As, however, the hoof is constantly growing it is constantly changing its form. The duty of a farrier therefore is not merely to fix a shoe upon the hoof but to reduce the hoof to proper proportions before doing so. Now as hoof is only the outer covering of a complex and sensitive foot, damage to the exterior surface may injure the structures within. Injury does frequently result, and not always from carelessness. Perhaps as much injury follows careful work, based upon wrong principles, as slovenly work carried out in perfect ignorance of any principle. The injury to feet resulting from shoeing may not be apparent at once. It may be, and often is, of a slow and gradual nature, and not credited to its true cause until the horse is rendered an incurable cripple.
It seems evident then that to do justice to a horse a farrier should not only possess manipulative skill, but should have a correct idea of the structures and functions of the foot, as well as a thorough knowledge of the form and variations of the hoof.
Few persons appreciate the importance of horse-shoeing, whilst a small number tell us it is unnecessary. Here and there an enthusiast has the courage of his convictions and is able, for a time, to exhibit animals doing work without shoes. In some countries horses are regularly ridden with no addition to their natural hoof, but in such places the surface over which the animals travel is grass land. In all civilised countries where good roads exist shoeing is practised. The gentleman with a fad who occasionally appears in England with unshod horses at work is an unconscious impostor. He sets his little experience against the common sense and universal practice of others. No man of business would pay for shoeing if he could do without it. The "shoeless" experiment has been tried over and over again, but always with the same result—a return to shoeing. In dry weather the hoof becomes hard, and it is wonderful how much wear it will then stand on the hardest of roads. In wet weather the hoof becomes soft, and then the friction on hard roads soon prohibits work without shoes. If work be persisted in, under such circumstances, the hoof rapidly wears away and lameness results. Persons trying to prove a pre-conceived theory meet this difficulty by resting the horse until the horn grows, but business men who keep horses for work in all weathers can afford no such luxury. Shoeing has been called "a necessary evil." The phrase is a misuse of words, for there is no necessary evil about it. Of course it is no more free from accident than other operations, but its evils are fairly described as accidents, whilst its benefits are fully apparent. Without shoes horses at work would be more often lame than with them; without shoes horses could not do half the work they do with them, and so we need not further discuss the necessity of shoeing.