the nails are not broken by the displacement of the shoe; there is a better adaptation of the clip at the toe, and a more intimate adhesion is obtained between the iron and the surface of the horn.
'Hot shoeing endows the hoof with more resistance; the horn, heated by the iron, is less hygrometrical, and less permeable by fluids.
'M. Reynal thinks that the caloric that impregnates the horn favourably disposes it for the reception of the shoe; that it destroys the absorbent, spongy, hygrometrical properties of the horn, and renders it insensible to external influences. . . . With some show of reason, the eff'ects produced on horn by the hot iron have been compared to those of fire on pieces of wood whose extremities are superficially carbonized before being buried in the ground. Every one knows that this operation contributes to the preservation of the wood by preserving it from the action of humidity.'
Professor Renault put the two methods to the test of what was looked upon by competent authorities as a convincing experiment. He took two feet from a dead horse, one of which had been shod in the ordinary manner by fitting the iron plate to it while hot, and the other by the cold plan, according to the prescribed rules. These feet were immersed for twelve days in the water and mud of a pond, and afterwards washed and exposed for eight days to the action of heat. At the end of that period, the foot that had been fitted with the cold shoe, the hoof of which was previously swollen under the influence of humidity, had lost a great part of its primitive volume by the action of the heat. The shoe projected slightly all round the foot,
