The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-11-15
HORSESHOEING NOT SIMPLE
EDUCATION IN 1T IS MUCH
NEEDED
And the HoFseshoers Demand state
schools.

Schools.
The National Association of Master
Horeshoers of America held its annual
convention in Philadelphia last week,
and took stock of trade progress and
trade needs. In thes days, when most
trades are no longer simple matters,
horseshoeing is no exception.
HOrseshOeing has become science.
The horeshoer learns how to fit shoes
to cure lameness, how to shoe to cure
hollow chests in rundown gallant
steeds, and how to change the gait of
horse by the simple method Of fitting
his shoes to the gait desired.
He must know something of horse
anatomy, and the more he knows the
better. In fact, he must have special
education for this branch of industry
if he would do well.
One Of the officers of the national as
ISOLATION complains that the average
apprentice is not learned in the princi-
pies of horse anatomy and fears that
until he is the trade will lag in the rear
of others. Another boldly advocates
state schools in horseshoeing to teach
the rudiments of the art. They are all
enthusiasts, and they have discovered
so many new things in horseshoeing in
the last year that $50 large pages of
the trade organ are needed to tell them.
A horseshoer from the west has
found out how to shoe horse so that
his habits of hitting his ankles, his
shins or his knees can be cured. He eX-
planned his method for the benefit of
his fellow craftsmen.
Another has discovered that in most
cases sunken chests in horses are due
to tender feet and bad shoeing and has
invented a shoe, with heels, to fit the
case.
Still another, for the conventions
benefit, went scientifically into the
great gaiting question from sixty
four-year long study of it, and told
how to fit shoes so as to get the top
speed out of the animals under treat
ment.
Horseshoeing, according to this vet
eran, is still in its infancy, though it is
a trade centuries old. Upon the mas
terry of anatomy and physiology de-
ponds the competency of the profess
sion, he says, and nothing would more
conduce to this end than the establish
ment of college which should be made
q government institution for the benefit
of the horse.
The methods of shoeing horses now
are vastly different from those of
years ago. Time has wrought changes.
The artificial highways over which
the animal does his work have a ten
dency to demonstrate-ic A g NTH mtm
6ency to demoralize the strongest hoof,
and it requires skill and science to
keep the feet in the healthy condition
with which nature originally endowed
him. Structural changes in the hoof
are the cause of much lameness among
horses after being used for a length of
time over the unyielding .pavements of
the city and it is, impossible to follow
the same rule of shoeing in a given
number of cases, SO there is the more
need, according to the experts in the
trade, for school or schools where the
art can be studied and the speed and
condition of the horse improved there
by.
Of course, American horseshoers are
gahead in the trade. They have taken
improved methods and appliances to all
parts of the world and have seen them
snapped up by foreign blacksmiths.
= The convention learned of tie adven-
lures of one of its members among the
Kaffirs in South Africa and of another
: in far away Alaska.
He who had been to Alaska brought
back a discouraging report. There are
few horses there and little work even
at high prices for the horseshoer. The
biggest days work he had was putting
on twenty shoes.
1t paid him $50, but with Alaskan
prices that was nothing much, and he
came home. The folks who made
money out there, he reported, were
those who sold things to eat and he
told this instance of their enterprise:
ga married couple came to town
bringing with them a pair of half
starved chickens These chickens were
bought by an enterprising restaurateur,
who hung out a sign for two days with
Chicken Dinner Tomorrow on it,
about 200 people sat down to that
chicken dinner, and there was plenty of
chicken for everybody. The restaurant
man had lot of it packed away in
cans. He made soup out of it and got
So ap late for the chicken soup and a
little of the canned meat. He paid $50
for the two chickens" From the New
York Sun.