The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

130 The Management and Treatment of the Horse,
skill is required to make this shoe, and properly fit and
put on, yet no skill is required to cut and pare the
horse's foot, that being a part of the smith's performance
which is best left undone. ..." Free Lance," in
his writing, strongly advocates horses going without
shoes of any kind, and tells us that the Arabs never
shoe their horses, yet they perform long journeys with-
out injury to the feet. He also tells us that he has seen
thousands of unshod horses bringing cotton some three
hundred miles up the country in South America over
bad roads, and not one per cent, ever went lame or
became foot-sore. '• Free Lance " evidently is labour-
ing under a mistake as regards the Arab and his horses,
unless, indeed, they have much altered since the author
was in their conntry ;
they do not shoe their horse unless
they are going long journeys, then they are not shod
with iron, owing to the difficulty of obtaining that
metal ; but they make a shoe of raw-hide which they
nail to the feet ; this shoe will wear for a week or ten
days, quite long enough to enable them to perform a
long journey. The pack horses again in South America
are certainly driven in droves to the Coast, with about
one hundredweight of cotton on each horse, over roads
bad enough for anything ;
yet they have never been shod,
and consequently they are as Nature lormed them, and
on the other hand they do not travel fast, and not
compelled to go as men may guide them, but arc
perfectly at liberty to pick their way, and, sensible
beasts that they are, will not put their feet upon
anything likely to hurt them. Although horses may
perform long journeys without shoes in America, South