Rational Horse Shoeing and Wagon Making
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with rules, tables, recipes, etc., useful to
manufactures, blacksmiths, machinists,
well-drillers, engineers, liverymen,
horse-shoers, farmers, wagon-makers,
mechanics, amateurs and all others who have
occasion to perform the work for which this
book is primarily intended.
elevate the man. I cannot too strongly emphasize this truth.
Every smith should connect himself with some branch of the
church and be punctual in attendance to the same. There is a
great deal of difference between families that enjoy the
Christianizing, civilizing and uplifting influence of the church
and those outside of these influences. The smith outside of
the church, or he who is not a member thereof will, in many
cases, be found on Sundays in his shop or loafing about in his
everyday clothes, his wife and children very much like him. The
church member his wife and children, are different. Sunday is a
great day to them. The smith puts on his best clothes, wife
and children the same. Everything in and about the house has
a holiday appearance and the effect on them of good music
and singing, eloquent preaching, and the meeting of friends is
manifested in their language, in their lofty aims, and
benevolent acts. Sunday is rest and strength to them.
Brother smiths, six days a week are enough for work. Keep
the Sabbath and you will live longer and better.
months in a shop, he will succeed in welding a toe calk on a horseshoe that sometimes will stay, and at once he
begins to think he knows it all. There will always be some fool ready to flatter him, and the young man believes that
he is now competent to start on his own hook. The result is, he hangs out his shingle, begins to practice
horse-shoeing and general blacksmithing, and he knows nothing about either. Let me state here that horse-shoeing
is a trade by itself, and so is blacksmithing. In the large cities there are blacksmiths who know nothing about
horse-shoeing, as well as horse-shoers who know nothing about blacksmithing, except welding on toe calks, and in
many instances even that is very poorly done. In small places it is different. There the blacksmith is both blacksmith
and horse-shoer. Sometimes you will find a blacksmith that is a good horse-shoer, but you will never find a
horse-shoer that is a good blacksmith. This is not generally understood. To many blacksmithing seems to mean only
horse-shoeing, and our trade journals are not much better posted. Whenever a blacksmith is alluded to, or pictured
you will always find a horse-shoe in connection with it. Yet there are thousands of blacksmiths that never made a
horse-shoe in all their lives. Horse-shoeing has developed to be quite a trade, and if a man can learn it in a few
years he will do well. I would not advise any young man to start out for himself with less than three or four years'
experience. Every horse-shoer should make an effort to learn blacksmithing. He will be expected to know it, people
don't know the difference; besides this, it will, in smaller cities, be hard to succeed with horseshoeing alone. On the
other hand, every blacksmith should learn horse-shoeing, for the same reasons. Therefore, seven or even ten years
is a short time to learn it in. But, who has patience and good sense enough to persevere for such a course, in our
times, when everybody wants to get to the front at once? Let every young man remember that the reputation you
get in the start will stick to you. Therefore be careful not to start before you know your business, and the years
spent in learning it will not be lost, but a foundation for your success. Remember, that if a
thing is not worth being well done it is not worth being done at all. It is better to be a first-class bootblack or
chimney sweep, than be a third-class of anything else.
Don't be satisfied by simply being able to do the work so as to pass, let it be first class. Thousands of mechanics are
turning out work just as others are doing it, but you should not be satisfied to do the work as others are doing it,
but do it right.