HOW TO DRIVE A HORSE-SHOE NAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4667, 28 October 1876, Page 5

HOW TO DRIVE A HORSE-SHOE NAIL.

Most farmers hesitate to attempt to fasten ou a loose shoe for fear of injuring the foot by driving the nail in a wrong direction. It is such a saving of time and money to be able to put a shoe upon a, horse in a hurried busy time, that every farmer ought to learn how to do it. He may practice upon -a piece of soft pine wood in a rough way, when he will find how easy it is, by properly preparing the nails, to make the point come out in exactly the proper placj. To prepare the nail it should be laid upon the anvil (which every workshop should have for such work as this), or a smooth iron block, aud beaten out straight; the point should then be beveled slightly upon one of the flat sides, and the point also bent a very little from the side which is beveled. In driving such a nail into a piece of soft wood, or a horse's hoof which is penetrated easily in any direction, if the beveled side is placed towards the centre of the hoof and away from the crust, the point will be bent outward, and will come out lower or higher on the crust as the bevel and curve may be more or less. A little practice will enable one to cause the point to protrude precisely at the right place. By turning the bevel outwards in driving the nail, the course will be towards the centre of the foot. The nail is sometimes started in the wrong direction by careless blacksmiths and the horse is lamed in consequence. .If the mistake is discovered, and an attempt made to draw out the nail, a piece may be broken off, and at every concussion of the foot, the fragment will penetrate further, until it reaches the sensitive parts, and great snffering will follow. Many a horse ia supposed to have navicular disease (because, that happens to be one of those obscure affections of the foot which have no outward sign) when the trouble is a fragment of nail broken off by a bungling shoer. We have examined the foot of a horse which was killed because of an incurable lameness, and found a piece of a nail thus bedded in the centre of the foot, surrounded with an abscess which had eaten into the bone. The torture suffered by this horse must have been intense; and it was supposed to be a case of navicular disease, while the real cause was unsuspected.. .In driving nails into the hoof great cantion should be exercised. The hand or the thumb should be held over the spot where the point of the nail is expected to come out, and if it does not appear when it should do so, the nail must be withdrawn. Use no split or imperfect nail, and have the point very carefully prepared.