Among the Reports on the Paris Exhibition is a chapter
on a new system of shoeing horses. Its inventor, M. Charlier, contends that the present shoe destroys the horse's foot, and substitutes for it an iron band, let into a rectangular groove scooped from the outer circle of the horse's foot. This band is fastened with seven rectangular nails, driven into oval holes. The sole of the foot and the frog are thus allowed to touch the ground, the horse never slips, and never gets diseases of the foot. The new shoe has been tried by M. Lauguet, a large jobmaster in Paris, and has reduced lameness in his stables by two-thirds. The Omnibus Company, moreover, have shod 1,200 horses, and speak of the improvement in high terms. Has anybody ever clearly explained why a horse can travel without shoes all his life on a stony desert as hard as iron, and cannot travel on an English road ?
Previous page
