each becomes dead and falls off in flakes, the growth downwards of the new horn pushing off the old in turn.’ This being so, all paring of either sole or frog is not only uncalled for but highly detrimental. To such of us as have been in the habit of thinking of the horse’s hoof as merely a homogeneous block of horn, without any particular architectural design, the lucid descriptions given by Mr. Douglas must impart a new light. Some amongst us cannot fail to ask themselves whether all these perfectly designed and delicate, although strong, arrangements were so ordered merely to have them thrown out of use by scorching, stiffening, and covering them with rigid iron, and lacerating and compressing with nails the delicate tubes through which flows the fluid on which the crust depends for its health and vitality?
Literary shoeing smiths do not frequently appear amongst us; but America, as usual, has been able to ‘supply this long-felt want’ in the person of Mr. Russell. He writes, in 1879, a book of 140 pages, containing fifty illustrations, twenty-seven of which are of shoes of different pattern and form. Mr. Gr. W. Bowler, V.S., writes the introduction, and has ‘carefully corrected the anatomical parts of the work.’ A man that has invented more than a score of shoes of different principles and shape must have been of an inquiring turn of mind; but the fact that so many different kinds were thought to be necessary seems to argue against the necessity of any of them. A great deal ought to be expected
