vous
system and joints from the shock of the concussion when the Race Horse
thunders over the course, seeming in his powerful stride to shake the
solid earth itself, and it gives the Trotter the elastic motion with
which he sweeps over the ground noiseless upon its yielding spring, but,
if shod with heavy iron, so that the frog does not reach the ground to
perform its function, his hoofs beat the earth with a force like the
hammers of the Cyclops.

With the facility to error characteristic of the unreasoning, it has
been one of the opinions of grooms and farriers that this callous,
india-rubber-like substance would wear away upon exposure to the action
of the road or pavement, and it has been one of their cherished
practices to set the horse up upon iron, so that he could by no
possibility strike the frog upon the ground.

In addition to this violation of nature, they pare away the exfoliating
growth of the organ, and trim it into the shape that suits their fancy.

Without action, muscular life is impossible, the portion of the body
thus situated must die, paralyzed or withered. Motion, use, are the law
of life, and the frog of the horse's hoof with a function as essential
and well-defined as any portion of his body is subject to the general
law. Without use it dries, hardens, and becomes a shelly excrescence
upon a foot, benumbed by the percussion of heavy iron upon hard roads.
This is a loss nature struggles in vain to repair, the horse begins to
fail at once. The elastic step, which in a state of nature spurned the
dull earth, becomes heavy and stiff, and the unhappy brute experiences
the evils partially described in the previous chapter.

To restore the natural action of the foot by putting the bearing on the
frog, is the chief object of the system we advocate, and the Goodenough
shoe is designed especially to provide for that first and last
necessity. If this is accomplished with a sound horse, he will avoid the
thousand ills that arise from the usual method, and, so far as his feet
are concerned, he will remain sound.

If the shoe is adopted as a cure for the unsoundness already manifested
in animals that have been deprived of the proper use of their feet, it
will cure them, not by any virtue in the iron itself, nor by any magic
in its application, but simply by giving beneficent nature an
opportunity to repair the ruin that the ignorance of man has wrought
upon her perfect handiwork.

This part of our subj