Appendix B.
Horse-Shoeing.
Sir,—I have read with the greatest interest the letters of ‘Free Lance’ on Horse Management, and am inclined, from my own observations in other countries where horses and mules are not shod, to try the experiment, and have no doubt many of my brother farmers would like to do the same; but will ‘Free Lance,’ or other equally good authority, tell us how to make a right beginning?
My horses have, of course, all undergone the ‘burning on’ and ‘laceration’ consequent on this barbarous custom, and farming operations are too backward to admit of the apparently necessary ‘rest’ being given to allow the injuries to the hoof to ‘grow out’ and harden.
Our local farrier does not, and probably would not care to, know much about the ‘Charlier’ shoe, and could throw every impediment in the way of a gradual change being successful.
All my horses have been bred on the farm, and, with the exception of the sire and another, are young and fresh; they are in perfect health; neither they nor their predecessors, during the last quarter of a century, having ever taken a drop of ‘medicine,’ or ‘horse balls,’ save the leaden ones to cure them of ‘crippled’ old age.
My carter thinks it might ‘do’ on the land, but shows a disposition to kick over the traces if the experiment is tried on the road. However, I am prepared to face ignorant prejudice by anointing the outraged feelings of my man by giving him half the saving in the blacksmith’s bill, which success will entail, to carry out the instructions necessary to perfect the change.
