A horse-shoe that the united voices or the shrewdest and ablest managers in the country commend—inasmuch as it enables cripples to work, frequently restores them, and maintains soundness where that quality exists—need not be recommended on the ground of economy. Such a horse-shoe could not be dear. But it takes all sorts of people to make a world, and the pressure to the square inch of mean men is not to be governed by safety-valves or regulated by gauges. There are too many men who will use the thing that costs the least outlay, even if it tortures or kills the horse. On the point of first cost we may say that if our shoe had no advantage over the hand-made shoe in preserving the natural action and growth of the foot, thereby retaining the powers of the animal in full vigor, it would still be cheaper than the common shoe. It is sold slightly higher than the clumsy pieces of bent iron called horse-shoes by mere courtesy, and its lightness gives one-third more shoes to the keg, while there is no expense of calking, which, in labor and material, is equal to three cents per pound. Upon the point of durability, it is well settled that the heavy shoe will not last so long as the light one with frog-pressure. A horse set upon heavy shoes grinds iron every time he moves. The least interposition of the frog will reduce the wear very materially, and if the frog is well on the ground, a horse will carry a shoe until he outgrows it.

A horse-railroad superintendent said to the writer, "We don't wear iron nowadays, we wear frog and cobble-stones; nature provides frog and Boston finds cobble-stones." When the Goodenough shoe is put for the first time upon a dry, half-dead foot, and the frog brought into lively action, growth is generally very rapid. We have often been compelled to reset the shoe, cutting down the wall, in ten days after shoeing. Many horses that have been used upon pavements and horse-railroads, have acquired a habit of slipping and sliding along, catching with heel-calks in the space between the stones; such horses do not at once relinquish the habit, and wear their first set of our shoes much more rapidly than the subsequent set, after they have assumed the natural action of their feet. But, economical as a light shoe that will long outlast a heavy one may be, the great saving is in the item of horse-flesh.

The value of the horses employed in the actual labor of the country reaches a startling sum total.

The vast importance of the horse in the movement of business, was never so fully understood and deeply felt as during the year past, when the epizoÖtic swept over the continent, paralyzing all movement and every form of human industry. Even the ships that whiten the seas would furl their sails and steamers quench their fires but for the labors of the horse. During the epidemic the canal-boats waited idly for their patient tow-horses and railroads carried little freight; the crops of the West lay in the farmers' granaries and the fabrics of the Eastern loom and varied products of mechanical industry crowded the warehouses; even the ragpicker in the streets suspended his humble occupation, for the merchant, unable to transport rags, refused to buy them of the gatherer. The investment of national wealth in horses being so enormous, any means that adds to the efficiency of the horse greatly enhances the general prosperity.

PERFECT SHOE AND HOOF.
PERFECT SHOE AND HOOF.

IMPERFET SHOE AND HOOF.
IMPERFECT SHOE AND HOOF.

It is an old English saying, that "a good horse will wear out two sets of feet." The meaning of this adage is obvious: a good horse's feet are useless at the time when his other powers are in the prime. Mr. Edward Cottam, of London, in his "Observations upon the Goodenough System," states that London omnibus-owners use up a young horse in four years; that is, a horse of seven years of age goes to the knackers at eleven, pabulum Acherontis; and the only noticeable cause of their failure is from diseases of the feet. A horse properly shod and cared for should endure five times as long. In this country horses fail in the feet, and are called old at an age when they should be in the fullest activity. This is a double loss, for every horseman of experience knows that if an old horse is sound and vigorous he has some great advantages over a young one. He is safer in every respect, "way-wise," seasoned, steady, and reliable. He and his owner are old friends and companions and can not part but with a pang of regret. A good horse, well cared for, should work cheerfully until he is thirty years of age; yet how few are able to perform genteel service after fifteen! It is a sad sight that of the high-mettled, noble animal, once the petted darling of wealth, caressed by ladies and children, and guarded so that even the winds of heaven might not visit him too roughly, fallen through the successive grades of equine degradation, until at last he hobbles before a clam-wagon or a swill-cart—a sorry relic of better days.

The question is so plain that we hesitate to argue with intelligent people to prove that, if the old system of shoeing destroys the value of a horse in middle life, half his money value is sacrificed to ignorance—a waste that might be saved were nature's laws regarded. That part of the argument which demands that the faithful, devoted servant merits humane treatment and the best intelligence of the master in securing his health and comfort can not be forgotten and need not be urged upon the attention of the true horseman.