To restore the natural action of the foot by putting the bearing on the frog, is the chief object of the system we advocate, and the Goodenough shoe is designed especially to provide for that first and last necessity. If this is accomplished with a sound horse, he will avoid the thousand ills that arise from the usual method, and, so far as his feet are concerned, he will remain sound. If the shoe is adopted as a cure for the unsoundness already manifested in animals that have been deprived of the proper use of their feet, it will cure them, not by any virtue in the iron itself, nor by any magic in its application, but simply by giving beneficent nature an opportunity to repair the ruin that the ignorance of man has wrought upon her perfect handiwork. This part of our subject is so important that we shall return to it again in subsequent chapters, and enforce it at every point. [Illustration: GOODENOUGH SHOE--FRONT.] CHAPTER III. DESCRIPTION OF THE GOODENOUGH SHOE. From the representation of the shoe in the cut, its peculiar conformation will be observed, and the reason for these changes from the common form we shall endeavor to explain as clearly as possible. In the first place, it is very light, scarcely half the weight of the average old-fashioned shoe. The foot surface is rolled with a true bevel, making that portion of the web which receives the bearing of the hoof, the width of the thickness of the wall or crust. This prevents pressure upon the sole, and makes the shoe a continuation of the wall of the foot. The ground surface of the shoe has also a true bevel, following the natural slope of the sole, and bringing the inner part of the shoe to a thin edge. The outer portion is thus a thick ridge, dentated, or cut out into cogs or calks, allowing the nail-heads to be countersunk. This arrangement gives five calks--a wide toe-calk, the usual heel-calks, and two calks, one on each side, midway between the toe and heel--thus putting the bearing equally upon all the parts of the foot.