CHAPTER IV.

THE FORM AND MANUFACTURE OF SHOES.

Horse-shoes are made either by hand or machinery. In this country most are hand-made--the front shoes from new bar-iron, and the hind from old shoes welded together and drawn out under heavy hammers. Probably no method of working iron gives such good results as this in producing a hard, tough shoe that will withstand wear. The custom of the trade is to keep a stock of shoes suitable for all the regular customers. From this stock are selected sizes and forms, which are then specially fitted for each foot.

Various materials have been tried in the production of horse-shoes. Leather, compressed and hardened, has been tried, and failed. Vulcanite was experimented with unsuccessfully. Paper, or more correctly, a compressed _papier maché_, has also been tested but proved unsatisfactory. Steel has been pretty largely tried in many different forms, but it is difficult to temper. As nearly all shoes are applied immediately after being fitted they have to be rapidly cooled in water, and steel treated in this way is made so hard that, if the shoes do not break, they are dangerously slippery on most paved streets. As a material for shoes good malleable iron has no equal. It can be obtained in bars of various sizes to suit any form and weight of shoe, and the old shoes made from it may be worked up over and over again.

The chief objects to be attained in any particular pattern or form of shoe are--that it be light, easily and safely retained by few nails, capable of wearing three weeks or a month, and that it afford good foot-hold to the horse. All shoes should be soundly worked and free from flaws.

The first shoes were doubtless applied solely to protect the foot from wear. The simplest arrangement would then be either a thin plate of iron covering the ground surface of the foot, or a narrow rim fixed merely round the lower border of the wall. Experience teaches that these primitive forms can be modified with advantage, and that certain patterns are specially adapted to our artificial conditions. A good workman requires no directions as to how he should work, and it is doubtful if a bad one would be benefitted by any written rules, but it should be noted that a well-made shoe may be bad for a horse's foot, whilst a very rough, badly-made one may, when properly fitted, be a useful article. To make and apply horse-shoes a man must be more than a clever worker in iron--he must be a farrier, and that necessitates a knowledge of the horse's foot and the form of shoe best adapted to its wants.

=Weight of Shoes.= The lighter a shoe can be made the better. Weight is a disadvantage we are obliged to put up with to obtain wear, for the frequent removal of shoes is only a little less injurious to the hoof than working with none at all. It is not to be understood that the heaviest shoe gives the most wear; on the contrary, a heavy shoe may have the iron so distributed as to increase the rapidity of wear, and a shoe of half the weight properly formed may last longer. It is no uncommon thing to find worn-out shoes still weighing more than a new shoe which will, on the same horse, give a longer period of wear. When a horse wears his shoes out very rapidly, the indication to the farrier is not simply to increase the weight, but to see if he can obtain more wear by altering the form and distributing the iron in a different way. A tired horse wears his shoes much more rapidly than a fresh and active one. Continued slipping wears away a shoe out of all proportion to the work done by a horse having a firm foot-hold. These two different conditions may be partially due to the shoes, for a heavy shoe tires the leg, and broad flat shoes favour slipping. Some horses wear one special part of the shoe excessively--as a rule, either at the toe or the heel--and this is better met by turning up the worn part out of the line of wear than by thickening it and so increasing weight. Besides, a heavy shoe requires a greater number or a larger size of nails to retain it securely in position, and this is a disadvantage. It has often been asserted that a horse "goes better" in a heavy shoe than a light one, and that this is due to the heavier shoe acting as a protection to the foot and warding off concussion. If the term "goes better" merely means that he lifts his foot higher and consequently bends his knee more, I do not deny the assertion. The reason of this is not that the horse feels less concussion and therefore goes freer. It is an exaggeration of the natural movements, due simply to the horse with weight imposed on his feet having to use the muscles of his arms more to lift that weight. The same thing can be brought about by tying bags of shot on to the hoof, which is done to cultivate "action." The healthy foot requires no artificial aids against concussion, but when a foot becomes tender from bad shoeing it may sometimes be relieved by adding to the substance and weight of a shoe.

The following are about the average weights, per shoe, of horses standing 16 hands high:

Race Horses 2 to 4 ounces. Hacks and Hunters 15 to 18 " Carriage Horses 20 to 30 " Omnibus " 3 to 3-1/2 lbs. Dray " 4 to 5 "

=Thickness and Width of Shoes.= To obtain the necessary amount of wear from shoes they must be increased either in thickness or width, and it will assist us in estimating the relative value of these conditions if we shortly consider their advantages and disadvantages. I may say at once that no sound foot requires a wide shoe merely as "cover" or protection for the sole. Defective soles may sometimes require protection, but sound ones never, and we may therefore put aside entirely all claims made for width of shoe under pretence that it gives a valuable protection to the foot. A shoe should be as wide as the natural bearing surface of the foot, so that it may occupy the whole of the space offered by nature as useful for bearing. Even when it is wider no harm is done until the width is such as to afford a lodgement for stones, etc., between the concave sole and the web of the shoe.

A thick shoe raises the foot from the ground and thus removes the frog from bearing--a very decided disadvantage. It also requires the larger sizes of nails to fill up the deep nail holes, and very often renders the direction of the nail holes a matter of some difficulty.

The width of a shoe may beneficially vary. It should be widest at the toe to afford increased surface of iron where wear is greatest. It should be narrowest at the heels so as not to infringe upon the frog, nor yet to protrude greatly beyond the level of the wall. The thickness of a shoe should not vary unless, perhaps, it be reduced in the quarters. Heel and toe should be of the same thickness so as to preserve a level bearing. Excess of thickness at the toe puts a strain on the back tendons, whilst excess at the heels tends to straighten the pastern.

=The surfaces of Shoes.= There are two surfaces of the shoe which claim attention, one which is applied to the foot, and another which rests on the ground. The form of these surfaces may be varied greatly, but of course the foot-surface presents much less necessity and less opportunity for alterations than the ground-surface. The foot-surface of a shoe must be formed in accordance with the requirements of the horse's foot, and no other consideration should be allowed to materially modify it. The ground-surface may be altered to suit the tastes and prejudices of the owner as well as the requirements of the horse and the peculiarity of roadways.

=The Foot-Surface.= It is quite obvious that the surface of the shoe upon which the hoof has to rest should be regular and even; that it should not consist of hills and holes or grooves and ridges. I should not have mentioned such a very evident matter but that in large towns, the cheaper and poorer classes of shoeing commonly possess this very fault. When shoes are made from thin, wide, old iron tyres they are "buckled" on one surface, and to hide this the farrier puts that side to the foot so that it is not noticed until it causes damage. There are three or four forms of foot-surface adopted by farriers, all of which have distinctive features, and some of which have very grave evils. There is the plain flat surface which is given to all narrow shoes, to hunting shoes, and to some heavier and wider shoes. So long as the sole is healthy and arched this is a very good form. All hind shoes have a flat foot-surface, and most fore shoes might have it with advantage. It utilises the whole of the natural bearing surface, and must of necessity afford a firmer basis for the foot to rest upon than a more limited surface. The fore feet are not so constantly arched in the sole as the hind. Sometimes they are flat and occasionally convex. If a shoe be intended for use on all feet--on feet with convex and flat soles as well as those properly formed--a wide flat foot surface would often cause injury by pressing unevenly upon the sole. To avoid this injury in less than five per cent of feet, and to save the trouble of keeping in stock shoes of different forms, the flat foot-surface of front shoes has been replaced by a bevelled or "seated" surface. (Fig. 33).

This form is very widely used. It consists of a narrow flat surface next the outer circumference of the shoe, about equal in width to the border of the wall, and within that, of a bevelled surface, sloped off so as to avoid any pressure on a flat sole. This "seated" surface is not positively injurious but it limits the bearing to the wall, and neglects to utilise the additional bearing surface offered by the border of the sole. If shoes were to be made all alike no shoe is so generally useful and safe as one with a foot-surface of this form, but it is evident that when the sole of the foot is concave there is nothing gained by making half the foot-surface of the shoe also concave.

There are two other forms of foot-surface on shoes. In one the surface slopes gradually from the outer to the inner edge of the shoe, like the side of a saucer. In the other the incline is reversed and runs from the inner edge downwards to the outer. This last form is not often used, and was invented with the object of spreading or widening the foot to which it was attached. The inventor seemed to think that contraction of a foot was an active condition to be overcome by force, and that expansion might be properly effected by a plan of constantly forcing apart the two sides of the foot. The usual result of wearing such a shoe is lameness, and it achieves no good which cannot be as well reached by simply letting the foot alone.

The foot-surface which inclines downwards and inwards like a saucer acts in an exactly opposite way to the other. The wall cannot rest on the outer edge of the shoe, and consequently falls within it, the effect being that at every step the horse's foot is compressed by the saucer-shaped bearing. This form of surface (Fig. 35) is frequently seen, and is at all times bad and unnecessary. Even when making a shoe for the most convex sole it is possible to leave an outer bearing surface, narrow but level, which will sustain weight without squeezing the foot.

At the heels the foot-surface of all shoes should be flat--not seated--so that a firm bearing may be obtained on the wall and the extremity of the bar. No foot is convex at the heels, therefore there is no excuse for losing any bearing surface by seating the heels of a shoe to avoid uneven pressure. Fig. 36 rather exaggerates the "unseated" portion of shoe.

=The Ground-Surface.= As I have said, this may vary indefinitely. Sometimes it is a plain flat surface, broken only by the holes made for nails or by the "fullering" which affords not only space for the nails but some grip on the ground. When a shoe is "fullered" the groove made should be deep, so as to let the nail-head well down, and wide so as to afford room for giving the nail a proper direction. If the fullering be continued round the toe of a shoe by a good workman neatness is given, but when a clip is drawn the iron is so reduced that some wear is sacrificed. If only an inch at the toe be unfullered, the solid iron affords more wear just where it is wanted.

The concave shoe, often described as a hunting-shoe, presents a very different ground-surface from that just referred to. It rests upon two ridges with the fullering between, and on the inner side of these the iron is suddenly sloped off. This shoe is narrow and flat on the foot-surface, and is specially formed to give a good foot-hold and to be secure on the hoof.

A Rodway shoe has two longitudinal grooves and three ridges on its ground-surface. The outer groove carries the nails, and the inner groove lightens the shoe and increases the foot-hold. It is not the number of grooves or ridges that prevents slipping; it is the absence of a continuous flat surface of iron, and the existence of irregularities which become filled up with sand and grit. A four-grooved shoe has no more anti-slipping properties than a three-grooved, and a one-grooved shoe is as good as either, although it cannot stand the same amount of wear.

Transverse ridges and notches have also been tried as ground-surfaces for shoes, but offer very little, if any, better grip than the longitudinal grooves. Their great disadvantage is that they cannot be made deep enough without weakening the shoe, whilst if shallow they are worn out before the shoe has been long in wear.

=A Calkin= is the name given to the extremity of a shoe when turned down at the heels. Calkins are used on most hind shoes and, in some parts of the country, on fore shoes. They are supposed to be the most convenient and effective means of giving good foot-hold. This supposition is correct when a horse travels on soft ground or on streets so paved that a space is left between each course of stones. They are of very little use on asphalte or wood pavement, and not much more use on roller-made macadam. With light modern carriages and level modern roads calkins are quite unnecessary, and better means of giving foot-hold may be substituted. It is a fact that horses when shoes are new and calkins prominent do their work without slipping, and that when the calkins are worn down the horse moves with less confidence and security. This does not prove that calkins are necessary. It must be remembered that horses possess a power of adapting themselves to circumstances, but having learned to rely upon any artificial assistance they are the more helpless, for a time, on its withdrawal. Calkins assist the horse for a time, but after the calkin is worn down the horse is in a worse position than if he had never become accustomed to its assistance. Of course on soft ground, especially grass, calkins afford a firmer grip than any other contrivance. On the other hand, their constant use lifts the frog out of bearing and causes it to waste, thus spoiling the action of the natural provision against slipping. Level shoes on the hind feet promote sound, prominent frogs, and give firm foot-hold for all light horses. Even omnibus horses, now that the vehicles are supplied with effective foot-brakes, may advantageously be worked without calkins. On country roads, especially when the district is hilly or the load is heavy, calkins may be requisite, and must then be made to do as little harm as possible.

The wear of a shoe is affected by the height of a calkin. The more the heel is raised the greater the amount of wear at the toe. Many shoes when worn out at the toe show very little effects of wear at other parts, and the question arises how best to increase the wear of the shoe without increasing its weight. In Fig. 39 three diagrams are presented in which dotted lines show the effect of wear. At (_a_) the shoe is of even thickness throughout--from heel to toe--and the line of wear shows that when the shoe is worn out a great amount of iron remains. At (_b_) the quarters of the shoe are made thinner and the toe is made thicker, so that with no increase of weight but by a better distribution of the iron, increased wear is provided for at the part where it is most required. At (_c_) is shown a shoe similar in form to that at (_b_) but differently fitted. The toe is turned slightly upwards, and the result is that a larger portion of iron is brought into wear. In the case of very hard-wearing horses that scrape out the toe of the ordinary shoe in ten or fourteen days this form of fitting adds considerably to the durability of the shoe, and so preserves the foot from the evil of too frequent removal of shoes, whilst avoiding any increase of weight. Without calkins wear is more evenly distributed, and the toe is not worn away disproportionately to the rest of the shoe.

A calkin throws the leg and foot, to some extent, out of their proper position. A very high calkin is not only objectionable, it is unnecessary. Not much prominence is required to afford a catch or stop. Excessive height is usually given to meet wear, and this can be obtained equally well by increasing the width and breadth. I, therefore, recommend that when calkins are used they should be low, square and broad. The further under a foot the calkin is placed, the greater is the raising of the heel, therefore calkins should always be accompanied by a long shoe. The further back a calkin be placed the less it interferes with the natural position of the foot.

Calkins render a horse liable to tread the opposite foot, and the higher and sharper the calkin the greater the injury inflicted. To avoid this injury the inner heel of a shoe frequently has no calkin, but is made at the same level as the outer by narrowing and raising the iron at the heel, forming what is called a wedge heel. This is not an advisable form of shoe as it has on the inner heel a skate-shaped formation, most favourable to slipping, and on the outer a catch--an arrangement tending to twist the foot each time the catch takes hold of the ground. If calkins are used at all they should be of equal height and on both heels of the shoe.

In Scotland, and in the North of England, heavy horses are shod, fore and hind, not only with calkins but also with toe-pieces, and the owners assert that the horses could not do the work without them. That horses do similar work in the South without calkins and toe-pieces rather shakes one's faith in the assertion, but it must be remembered that nearly all paved streets in the North have a division left between the rows of stones in which the toe-piece finds a firm resisting surface. I believe also that the average load drawn is greater in the North than in the South. One thing in favour of toe-pieces must be acknowledged--they, with the calkins, restore the natural position of the foot and preserve the level of the shoe. On the larger draught horses the toe-pieces permit a lighter shoe to be used, as the portion of iron between heels and toe need not be thick to resist wear. It only requires to be strong enough to support weight and much less iron is therefore used.

The heavy dray horse of the North, shod with toe-pieces and calkins, is never worked at a trot. In London all horses are trotted--a proceeding which reflects discredit upon the intelligence of the managers.

I must mention another objection to calkins. They increase the tendency to "cut," and many horses will cease "cutting" after calkins are removed and a level shoe has been adopted.

=Nails and nail holes.= It is necessary to consider these together as they are dependent on each other. Shoes were first nailed to the feet by flat-headed nails, and probably it was a long time before the wedge-headed nail was thought of. When the nail head fits into the nail hole it may retain the shoe till it is worn as thin as a penny, but if only the shank of the nail enters the shoe, the head is soon worn off and the shoe becomes loose. Within the last 20 years the horse-shoe nail trade has been revolutionised by the introduction of machinery. Machine-made nails are now almost entirely used, and the three or four leading brands are as near perfection as were the very best hand-made. Practically there is no fault to find with them, and as they are ready-pointed for driving they save time and labour in the forge. They are made in various sizes, and numbered from 2 up to 16. Only the very best iron can be used to produce good nails. Nothing is dearer than bad nails which cause injury to the foot and loss of shoes.

A good nail should present certain forms of head, neck and shank. The head should not be too broad at the top or it may become fixed in the nail-hole only by its upper edge, as shown in the middle diagram Fig. 41, and when the shoe has had a few days wear the nail loses its hold, and the shoe is loose. The neck should not be too thick, as it is then liable to press on the sensitive foot and to break the wall. The shank should not be too wide or too thick. The point should not be too long or too tapered as this leaves insufficient metal to form a good clinch.

There are two methods of putting nail-holes into shoes--by "fullering" and by "stamping." A stamped shoe is one in which the nail holes are merely punched at certain distances, so as to leave four-sided tapered holes of the exact shape of a nail-head. A fullered shoe is one having a groove round the circumference through which the nail-holes are punched. Both processes, when well-done, admit of nails being driven into the hoof with equal safety and ease.

Whether stamped or fullered, there are a few more important points to remember about the nail-holes. The wall is not of the same thickness throughout, but becomes thinner towards the heels. The inner side of the foot is also somewhat thinner and more upright than the outer. The safest position, then, for the nails is in the front half of the foot, but should this position not present sound horn they may be placed further back. The danger of placing nails near the heels is due entirely to the greater risk in driving them through the thin horn. There need be no fear of interfering with expansion.

The distance of the nail-holes from the outer edge of the shoe should depend upon the thickness of the horn of the wall, and therefore be greater in large shoes than in smaller, and greater at the toe than at the heels of the same shoe. When the nail-holes are all near to the circumference of the shoe (Fig. 42 B.) they are described as "fine"; when they are all placed far from the edge (Fig. 42 A.) they are called "coarse." When the nail-holes are too "fine" a nail has to be driven high up in the wall to obtain a firm hold, and this is liable to split the horn. When nail-holes are too "coarse" the nail in driving goes dangerously near the sensitive foot. The evils of coarse and fine nailing depend a great deal upon the method of fitting the shoes. When shoes are fitted full to the foot (when the outer circumference of the shoe is greater than the circumference of the wall) "coarse" nail-holes are brought to about their best position. When shoes are fitted close (_i.e._, when their outer edge is brought within the border of the wall) "fine" nail-holes are brought to their best position in relation to the foot. It need hardly be added that the fit of a shoe ought not to be subject to the position of the nail-holes, but that these should be properly placed so that fitting be guided only by the requirements of the foot.

Each nail-hole when properly placed--neither too coarse nor too fine--should be punched straight through the shoe and not inclined either inwards or outwards, except at the toe where the slope of the wall is followed by slightly pitching in. When a fuller is used the groove made should be wide; then the farrier has more command over the direction of his nail. If the nail-hole be pitched in, the nail must take that direction and is liable to wound the foot. If the nail-hole be pitched out, the nail is prevented from taking sufficient hold of the horn.

The position and direction of the nail-hole control the passage of a nail through a shoe and into the hoof. The man who drives a nail is usually blamed for laming a horse, but in most cases it would be more just to blame the man who made the nail-holes or fitted the shoe and so rendered safe driving difficult or impossible.

Each nail-hole should be as far as possible from the other--say, from an inch to an inch and a half apart. When the two front or toe nail-holes are put too far back the whole are crowded, or the last are pushed back too near the heels.

For small shoes four or five nail-holes are sufficient. Medium-sized shoes should have from five to seven, and the heavy shoes of big draught horses must have eight. The number of nail-holes need not always be increased in proportion to the size of the shoe, because as the weight of shoe is increased so is the size of the nail, and an extra strong nail may take the place of additional ones. The fewer nails in a foot the better, but as a properly-placed nail does no harm, and as the loss of a shoe may be very serious, it is better to have one too many than one too few.

=Machine-made Shoes.= Horse-shoeing is distinctly an art requiring special skill for its proper performance. It is also one of the most laborious of all skilled trades. Anything which lightens mechanical toil tends to improve the mental and artistic qualities of the workman, and all applications of machinery which lessen the heavy manual labour of the farrier may therefore be looked upon as improvements. Machinery has lightened the labour of shoe-making in two ways--by supplying various patterns of grooved and bevelled iron in bars, which only require cutting into lengths and turning round to form a shoe, and also by making shoes all ready to be fitted to the foot. Machinery has not yet turned out a shoe as good and durable and well finished as the best workman can produce by hand, but it can produce many forms of shoes as good for all practical purposes, and it has this advantage--all are alike. Bad workmen make bad shoes, but a machine, once able to produce a good model, can repeat it exactly, therefore machine-made shoes of a proper pattern are superior to all but the very best hand-made shoes. Economy, of course, is on the side of the article produced by machinery, and all large firms keeping their own farriers find a great saving by buying the ready-made shoes. Under conditions when shoes must be fitted without a fire, as in coal mines, or in the case of armies during a campaign, the machine-made article has the advantages of regularity of form and a true level bearing surface.

In little shops where often only one man is at work, either machine-made shoes or prepared bar iron offer great conveniences. The prepared bars can be bought seated on the foot-surface and with a single or double groove on the ground-surface. Very narrow bars suitable for tips, "Charlier," or light hack shoes are now widely used, and a special bar--flat on the foot-surface, concave to the ground--can be obtained which only requires cutting into lengths and turning round to form a first-class hunting-shoe.

Both prepared bars and machine-made shoes must be judged by their form and by the material used in their manufacture. Some are better than others, but all have to contend with a large amount of trade prejudice which has little basis except in the matter of the hind shoes--here machinery has not yet reached perfection.