he weapons of
ordinary warfare. Like the fallen angels, they are--

"Vital in every part,
And can but by annihilation die."

One of the Greek fables, typifying the struggle of man against
circumstances, was a story of the battle between Hercules and Antaeus,
son of the Earth. The fight was long and doubtful, for whenever the
mortal was felled to the ground by the power of the vigorous god, his
force was renewed by contact with the breast of his mother Earth, and
he sprang to his feet and recommenced the never-ending strife.

This contest between the god, and the mortal born of earth and sea, is
the poetical type of the unceasing toil of man in the Valley of the
Nile, against the sandy waves of the Lybian desert, always encroaching
upon the cultivated soil, and demanding year by year new exertions to
repress their advance.

So, in our attempt to establish a better system of utilizing the powers
of the horse in the service of man, we have each day to meet the same
enemy, renewed by contact with the sources that foster and reinforce
ignorance. But as persistent labor conducted the beneficent waters of
the Nile in irrigating channels through the arid plain of the desert,
until upon the inhospitable edge gardens bloomed, fields of grain waved
in the breeze, and the date-palm cast its grateful shade upon the
husbandman--so we make healthful progress, and enjoy a widely increasing
triple reward--first, in the thankful esteem of our fellow men;
secondly, in the relief we afford to a noble animal; and last, in the
substantial return which the highest authority has adjudged to honest
labor.

REGULAR WORK.

We wish all readers of this book to understand that the directions
herein given for shoeing apply to horses whose owners expect them to
work regularly after shoeing--from the very hour in which the shoes are
set.

We do not propose to "lay up" horses, or to put them to rest in "loose
boxes," nor yet to "turn them out to grass." One of the chief
difficulties we have had with wealthy owners has been from the tendency
to keep the horse _out of work_ when we have got him into a condition
where we want exercise to stimulate the alterative process we propose.

A cure of any foot disease we have described, will be much more rapidly
effected if the horse has his regular work upon the roads or pavements
to which he is accustomed, no matter how hard they are.

We hope that it has also been noticed, that we do