Rational Horse-Shoeing | Page 4

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 subject is so important that we shall return to it again in
subsequent chapters, and enforce it at every point.

[Illustration: GOODENOUGH SHOE--FRONT.]
CHAPTER III.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GOODENOUGH SHOE.
From the representation of the shoe in the cut, its peculiar conformation
will be observed, and the reason for these changes from the common
form we shall endeavor to explain as clearly as possible. In the first
place, it is very light, scarcely half the weight of the average
old-fashioned shoe. The foot surface is rolled with a true bevel, making
that portion of the web which receives the bearing of the hoof, the
width of the thickness of the wall or crust. This prevents pressure upon
the sole, and makes the shoe a continuation of the wall of the foot. The
ground surface of the shoe has also a true bevel, following the natural
slope of the sole, and bringing the inner part of the shoe to a thin edge.
The outer portion is thus a thick ridge, dentated, or cut out into cogs or
calks, allowing the nail-heads to be countersunk. This arrangement
gives five calks--a wide toe-calk, the usual heel-calks, and two calks,

one on each side, midway between the toe and heel--thus putting the
bearing equally upon all the parts of the foot.
This calking has a double object. In the common system of shoeing, to
avoid slipping in winter upon the ice, and in the cities upon the wet,
slimy surface of pavement, or to assist draft, it is customary to weld a
calk upon the toe of a shoe, and to turn up the heels to correspond. In
this motion the horse is placed upon a tripod, his weight being entirely
upon three points of his foot, and those not the parts intended to bear
the shock of travel or to sustain his weight. The position of the frog is
of course one of hopeless inaction, and the motion of the unsupported
bones within the hoof produce inflammation at the points of extreme
pressure, so that, in case of all old horses accustomed to go upon calks,
there is ulceration of the heels, in the form of "corns," which the smith
informs the owner is the effect of hard roads bruising the heel from the
outside; he usually "cuts out the corn," and puts on more iron in the
form of a "bar shoe." Or the same action which produces corns, acting
upon the dead, dry, unsupported frog and sole, breaks the arch of the
foot so that a "drop sole" is manifest, or "pumiced foot," for both of
which a "bar shoe" is the unvarying, pernicious prescription. In the
Goodenough shoe, the calks are supplied, and the weight so distributed
that the objection to the old method does not exist.
COUNTERSINKING THE NAILS.
This is a point to which we call attention as of great importance. In
shoeing a horse for light or rapid work with a common flat shoe, seven
or eight nail-heads protrude, and take the force of his blow on the
ground. The foot has just been pared, and those nails, driven into the
wall and pressing against the soft inside horn and sensitive laminæ,
vibrate to the quick, and often cause the newly-shod horse to shrink,
and show soreness in traveling for a day or two. No matter how
skillfully shod, the horse will be all the better in escaping this
unnecessary infliction.
THE BEVEL OF THE FOOT SURFACE
Is to keep the shoe a continuation of the crust or wall of the hoof, and

to avoid percussion upon the sole.
THE BEVEL ON THE GROUND SURFACE
Is to follow the natural concavity of the foot and to give it the form
which will have no suction on wet ground, will not pick up mud, or
retain snow-balls.
THE CALKS
Have a use fully explained.
When the shoe thus described is set so as to secure frog-pressure, as
hereinafter directed, a horse may be shod without violation of nature's
laws; foot disease, under fair conditions, will become almost
impossible, and the useless refuse-stock, broken down by the old
method, may be restored to usefulness.

[Illustration: GOODENOUGH SHOE--BACK.]
CHAPTER IV.
HOW TO SHOE SOUND FEET.
If a foot came to the farrier in a perfectly normal condition, never
having been subjected to the destructive process of common shoeing,
the directions for putting on the Goodenough shoe would be simply, to
dress the foot by paring or rasping the wall until a shoe