With the more simple form of the condition, we may do much to render greater the animal’s usefulness.  The same principles as were applied to the shoeing of flat feet will have to be observed here.  Trimming or paring of any kind, save ‘straightening up’ of the wall, must be severely discountenanced.  A broad-webbed shoe, one that will give a certain amount of cover to the sole, is indicated.  As in the treatment of flat-foot, however, direct pressure upon the sole must be avoided, and the shoe ‘seated.’  The ‘seating,’ however, should not commence from the absolute outer margin of the shoe’s upper surface.  A flat bearing should be given to the wall and the white line, and the seating commenced at the sole.

We have already remarked on the increased growth of horn at the heels.  It is in this position, then, that will be found the greatest bearing surface for the shoe, and it is wise, in this case, to have the heels of the shoe kept flat.  In other words, the ‘seating’ is not to be continued to the hindermost portion of the branches of the shoe.  By this means there may be obtained at each heel a good solid bearing of from 2 to 3 inches, which would otherwise be lost.

Where the accompanying condition of the horn is bad enough to indicate it, a leather sole should be used, beneath which has been packed a compress of tow and grease, rendered more or less antiseptic by being mixed with tar.

Where the sole is exceedingly thin, and inclined to be easily wounded, and where the hoof, by its brittleness, has become chipped and ragged at the lower margin of the wall, it may perhaps be more advantageous to use, in place of the compress of tow, the huflederkitt of Rotten.  This is a leather-like, dark brown paste.  When warmed in hot water, or by itself, it becomes soft and plastic, and may readily be pressed to the lower surface of the foot, so as to fill in all little cracks and irregularities, and furnish a complete covering to the sole and frog, and to the bearing surface of the wall.  When cold it hardens, without losing the shape given to it, into a hard, leather-like substance.

Treated in this way, the animal with pumiced feet may yet be capable of earning his living at light labour or upon a farm.

E.  ‘RINGED’ OR ‘RIBBED’ HOOF.

Definition.—­A condition of the hoof in which the wall is marked by a series of well-defined ridges in the horn, each ridge running parallel with the coronary margin.  They are known commonly as ‘grass rings,’ and may be easily distinguished from the more grave condition we have alluded to as following laminitis, by the mere fact that they do not, as do the laminitic rings, approximate each other in the region of the toe, but that they run round the foot, as we have already said, parallel with each other.

[Illustration:  FIG. 82.—­HOOF SHOWING THE RINGS IN THE HORN BROUGHT ABOUT BY PHYSIOLOGICAL CAUSES.]