Page:Horses and roads.djvu/82

as he could hold it in his hand;’ this is virtually a cold shoe. He did not believe in calks, or paring the horn, but he let in his tips à la Charlier; and, finding that he could not get farriers to shoe as he wanted, he started his own forge, on his own farm, as he says ‘for his own protection.’ He goes on to say: ‘When the mare I drive came to me she had a frog the size of my little finger; now it fills up almost the whole of her foot. Nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of all the trouble in horses’ feet come from shoeing: in fact, practically all. Even in the case of heavy draught horses, put on as little iron as you can get on: never a heel or a toe calk. I have some heavy horses, and they go with seven or eight ounces on their feet. The whole secret is, if you have a horse whose feet have been abused for a series of years, all that is required is a little piece of iron at the toe. I am afraid I drive very hard down hill. I am in the habit of driving cripples; my friends have a good deal to say about the corpses that I drive; but I take care of their feet, and they manage to do good work. I make my best time in driving down hill. I have no fear of hard roads, and no fear of pavements, if a horse’s foot is kept in proper condition. Last winter I rode my saddle mare (and, of course, my neck is more to me than anything else I own) on glare ice, with a small bit of iron’—inlaid, as before explained—‘four inches long, curled around her toe, and with a very small toe calk. I galloped out on the ice where the men were cutting the ice, and I had no