Highways And Horses

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ... 100 CHAPTER XII. LETTER OF 'aberlorna' IN 'FARM JOURNAL'--LLEUT.-COL. BURDETT ON HOT SHOEING, GREASING, 'STOPPING, ' AND PARING THE HOOF--COLD SHOEING NORTH METROPOLITAN TRAMWAY HORSES ARE SHOD COLD WITH THE 8EELEY SHOE--GRADUAL BREAKING IN OF HORSES TO GO UNSHOD--DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS OF COUNTRIES WHERE HORSES ARE BRED--ANCIENT WRITERS ON BARE STONE AND WOOD FOR STALLS--OSMER HAS KNOWN UNSHOD HORSES GO SOUND IN ENGLAND--' OUR MOIST CLIMATE AND HARD ROADS'--MAYHEW AND DOUGLAS ON OPPOSERS OF PROGRESS. The letter of 'Aberlorna'1 seems to render it advisable to introduce here some remarks, which were only intended to be made later on, as to the amount of work to be first given to a horse who has had the full shoe replaced either by a tip or by nothing at all, and also as to small precautions useful to take when making the change. It is prudent to allow the shoes then on to wear themselves out, as this gives the frog, sole, and bars a chance of somewhat recovering from their last mutilation, which mutilation may have been greater or lesser; as, fortunately, now-a-days some of the smiths do not cut away as much horn ao was pre 1 See Appendix A. 'ABERLORNA'S' HORSE. 101 viously the universal rule. On this account some horses are better prepared than others for the change. Some, again, have naturally stronger and better formed hoofs than others; and all these circumstances weigh. What work one horse would be able easily to perform might be quite too much for another. At any rate, to ride a horse, on the second day after putting on tips, twenty miles 'over a road covered with new metal, in a simply abominable state, ' is, without doubt, a hazardous proceeding, and one courting a failure for the trial (not intentionally so, of course). Twenty.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.