fear of her slipping, although the horse that was marking the ice, that had calks on, two inches thick, did slip. There is hardly a person who owns a horse, who, if you put him four inches of iron on the toe, would think he could go more than half a mile from home without the horse breaking down.’ Yet so thoroughly was Mr. Bowditch convinced of the value of tips let into the hoof, that he had found it worth while to establish his own forge for preparing them on his own farm. He says that other people will not patronise his forge, because he will not allow shoeing to be done in it on any principle but his own: and so his forge does not bring him in the revenue it otherwise would. He refuses to become a party to propagating mistaken ideas. People come to him, seeing his success, with lame horses; and when he has cured them, he says they go back to their old farrier. Both Mr. Russell and Mr. Bowditch appear to have been convinced, in the first instance, that routine was leading them astray; and, like sensible men, they saw that the only way to escape from it was to throw aside entirely all professional opinion on the matter, and have their own way (as did the Messrs. Smither, here in London), Mr. Bowditch going so far as to start a forge of his own, over which he could be, and was, entirely master. He says, comically enough, that it was not a commercial success, because his neighbours only patronised him when they were in difficulties, out of which he alone could get them, and then they went their way; but
