UNSHOD HORSES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1724, 1 July 1884, Page 2

UNSHOD HORSES.

The first objection with which the proposition to let the horse go barefoot is met (remarks the S.P. Bulletin) that the hoofs will not stand the wear incident to use on pavements. On this point thoro seeinß to bo a difference of opinion between those who have tried it and those whoso opinions rest upon tradition. Sam Ohapin, of Lowell, says that ior the last fqur years' he has driven barefooted ft horse which he prized highly, He was assured by horseman with j?l\o[r) he discussed the matter before trying" it, that, while in some oases barefooted horseß might get on well enough, whore a horse was driven over the payements, as Mr Ohapin drove his, its feet would bo ruinod in a month, In April, 1882, Mr Ohapin pulled the shoes off his mare, and now he saya:—" Since that time those shoes havo hung up in the stable, and I would not put them on her feet again for any consideration. She had good feet when J frok them off, and she has better feet to-day, and all of my acquaintances in Lowell know that I am not a Blow, driver, no matter whether I am ou payements or soft road, i would not advise parties to take off their horses' shoes at this time of year, but take them off in the spring, when the frost is coming out of the ground, and hy the time the ground gets hard the frog of the foot gets grown down bo as to become a cushion for the hard ground and pavements to protect the nerve of the feet from injury, I now drive my horse up and down, over pavemonts, crossings, &o. I never expeot to see a harder winter for ice than we had here in Lowell last year, when some neighbors sharpened their horses toes twice a week j and I drove all the winterand what is called pretty sharp toch—without a shoe, and no slipping either." In Popular Science Monthly for February is an article in which an account is given of an old horse bought for the pnrpoge of. testing the question of the usefulness of shoeing, This horse was driven more than 100 miles on the hard roads jn and around London, when a photograph was taken of his hoof, showing a foot apparently little if any the froree for wear. The author says i—" It is impossible to say that the hoofs of this old horse are eicepiionally good, as any of . your readers who may favor me with a call shall see for themselves. That this animal after having been for years the 'victim of the farrier,' shojld work as he does barefoot is, I think, remarkable. As the old horee is nearly if not quite thoroughbred, have been shod (as is the vioious custom of

the turf) very early j yet oyer all those influences incidental to 'the miserable coerced shod foot, the unshod foot has triumphed, (Shod, jny horse' brushed' and stumbled badly, Dut barefoot he dees neither." ' . \