Every horseman will acknowledge that his experience has a parallel in the picture here presented. Many men have at various times attempted reform, but the difficulty heretofore encountered has been that the mechanical application was in the hands, not of the owners and reasoners, but in those of a class of men who are, for the most part, ignorant, prejudiced, and, consequently, apt to oppose any innovation upon the old abuses in which they have had centuries of vested right; and it was not until the studies of Mr. R. A. Goodenough that there were brought to bear veterinary knowledge, mechanical skill, and inventive faculty, to overcome the stolidity and interest which have been the lions in the way of true reform. CHAPTER II. FROG PRESSURE. That portion of the hoof called the "frog," performs the most important visible function in the economy of the movement of the horse. It is intensely vital and vigorous. The greater its exposure and the severer its exertion, the more strenuous is the action of nature to renew it. It is the spring at the immediate base of the leg, relieving the nervous system and joints from the shock of the concussion when the Race Horse thunders over the course, seeming in his powerful stride to shake the solid earth itself, and it gives the Trotter the elastic motion with which he sweeps over the ground noiseless upon its yielding spring, but, if shod with heavy iron, so that the frog does not reach the ground to perform its function, his hoofs beat the earth with a force like the hammers of the Cyclops. With the facility to error characteristic of the unreasoning, it has been one of the opinions of grooms and farriers that this callous, india-rubber-like substance would wear away upon exposure to the action of the road or pavement, and it has been one of their cherished practices to set the horse up upon iron, so that he could by no possibility strike the frog upon the ground. In addition to this violation of nature, they pare away the exfoliating growth of the organ, and trim it into the shape that suits their fancy. Without action, muscular life is impossible, the portion of the body thus situated must die, paralyzed or withered. Motion, use, are the law of life, and the frog of the horse's hoof with a function as essential and well-defined as any portion of his body is subject to the general law. Without use it dries, hardens, and becomes a shelly excrescence upon a foot, benumbed by the percussion of heavy iron upon hard roads. This is a loss nature struggles in vain to repair, the horse begins to fail at once. The elastic step, which in a state of nature spurned the dull earth, becomes heavy and stiff, and the unhappy brute experiences the evils partially described in the previous chapter.