guarded by the great conservative and healing
powers of nature from disease and death. His vitality is surpassed by
that of man, because man has the endowment of soul, and in his human
breast hope springs eternal and imagination gives fresh powers of
resistance. Like man, the horse conforms cheerfully to all climates and
to all circumstances. He is equally at home--

"Whether where equinoctial fervors glow
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow."

Amid the sands of Arabia his thin hide and fine hair evidence his
breeding; in the frozen north his shaggy covering defends him from the
cold storms and searching winds. The disadvantages under which he will
work are in no way so clearly illustrated as in his efficiency when
exposed to the evils of shoeing. Placed upon heel-calks, to slip about
and catch with wrenching force in the interstices of city pavements, or
loaded with iron-clogs, to give him "knee-action" and to "untie his
shoulders," he bravely faces his discomforts and does to the best of his
ability his master's will.

How quickly his active system responds to intelligent care and shows its
beneficial results! And when relieved from the abuses of ignorance, his
recuperative powers re-establish the springing step of youth.

CHAPTER I.

EVILS OF COMMON SHOEING.

Every horseman finds his chief difficulty in the fact that he has to
protect the natural foot from the wear incident to the artificial
condition in which the horse is placed in his relation to man. In those
important industries where great numbers of horses are used, and the
profit of the business depends upon the efficiency of the animal, the
question becomes a very serious one, and the life term of the horse, or
the proportion of the number of animals that are kept from their tasks
by inability, make the difference between profit and loss to the great
transportation lines that facilitate the busy current of city life. But
notwithstanding the importance of this subject, upon the score equally
of economy and humanity, the world is, for the most part, just where it
was a thousand years ago, possibly worse off, for the original purpose
of shoeing was only to protect the foot from attrition or chipping, and
but little iron was used, but, as the utility of the operation became
apparent, the smith boldly took the responsibility of altering the form
of the hoof to suit his own unreasoning views, cutting away, as
superfluous, the sole and ba