for Flemings’ improved drawing-knife, with guide, the only special tool required, and as soon as it arrived I began shoeing my horses on the Charlier principle by letting a narrow piece of iron into the outside crust and allowing the frog, sole, bars, and heels to come well to the ground.
I began very cautiously (although my horses’ feet had never been cut away, by way of trimming) for fear of a failure, and a laugh from my farrier and others. I ventured on a shorter shoe than the Charlier. My first measured, before turning, ten inches. It had six nail holes. This was for a horse l5½ hands. I put them on one of my old ‘screws,’ and I am pleased to say that he ran his eighteen miles splendidly and without any signs of lameness. I allowed him to run, with his usual rest, until he had gone a distance of 228 miles, as a trial. This was done without wearing the frog through to the quick, as my farrier was so much afraid of. The hoof was now in splendid condition. I then gave orders for all my horses to be shod on this principle, beginning with my best to prevent further unnecessary injury.
With each successive horse I have shortened the iron. Now I begin shoeing with four inches of iron let well into the toe. I have not had one case of lameness from tender feet, and every horse so shod has been able to do his ordinary work without any extra rest. I find that the shorter the iron the better it answers. I buy the ½-inch round iron and flatten it to ⅜ by ½ inch; cut off four inches, which weighs four ounces, let it well into the toe, and nail on with No. 6 counter-sunk nails. This I find wears quite as long, after the first shoeing, as the ordinary shoe did. My drivers are continually having their attention called, by ‘good meaning persons,’ to the fact that ‘the ’oss’ as lost ‘is shoe.’ They have got so used to
