well up to fifteen stone, and ready and eager for his feed when he got home, as his attention would not be distraught from the cravings of his stomach by agony in his feet and legs.
Then, again, we have been told that unshod horses, when used in cattle-driving, do not slip about on wet grass, and roll over as shod ones do. This fact alone is valuable, but we may note further that in certain weathers the feet of shod horses will clog even in grass; and when the clods fly out, with the force they do, the effects of leverage must become, upon reflection, more apparent to the educated. Further still, when we come to consider that horses have so often to take off on slippery grass (and land upon it also) at leaps, we may easily comprehend that refusals, baulks, and falls would be diminished. Then, again, in taking a drop-jump from a field, over a fence, into a road or lane. Mr. Miles says:—‘No horse experiences the full extent of the benefit of one-sided nailing with few nails like the hunter; it is a great boon to every horse, but to him it is a blessing of the highest order, and one in which his rider participates more largely than some persons appear to imagine. When a hunter is shod in the usual manner, with seven or eight nails, some are always, for the sake of security, placed in the inner quarter, which is the most expansive portion of the hoof(?). Let a horse with his feet so circumstanced be called upon to leap from a high bank into a hard road—and what happens? The weight of the horse and his rider is thrown with an impetus,
