Horsemanship, published some years previously, writes: 'Physic and a butteris, in well-informed hands, would not be fatal; but in the manner we are now provided with farriers, they must be quite banished. Whoever at present lets his farrier, groom, or coachman, in consideration of his having swept dung out of the stables for a greater or less number of years, ever even mention anything more than water-gruel, a clyster, or a little bleeding, and that, too, very seldom; or pretend to talk of the nature of feet, of the seat of lamenesses, sicknesses, or their cures, may be certain to find himself very shortly quite on foot, and fondly arms an absurd and inveterate enemy against his own interest. It is incredible what tricking knaves most stable-people are, and what daring attempts they will make to gain an ascendant over their masters, in order to have their own foolish projects complied with. In shoeing, for example, I have more than once known that, for the sake of establishing their own ridiculous and pernicious system, when their masters have differed from it, they have, on purpose, lamed horses, and imputed the fault to the shoes, after having in vain tried, by every sort of invention and lies, to discredit the use of them. How can the method of such people be commendable, whose arguments, as well as practice, are void of common sense? If your horse's foot be bad and brittle, they advise you to cover it with a very heavy shoe; the consequence of which proceeding is evident: for how should the foot, which before could scarce carry itself, be able afterwards to carry such an additional weight, which is stuck on, moreover, with a multitude of nails, the holes of which tear and weaken the hoof? The only system all these simpletons seem to agree in, is to shoe
