While working on this 35th Anniversary issue of American Farriers Journal, I've been paging through back issues. At times I can almost feel the heat of the forges and hear the distant echo of hammer ringing on steel.

In 1975, Henry Heymering recognized a lack of interaction among farriers on a local level. Without communication and trust, many shoers guarded their information, fearful of giving someone else a competitive edge. Frustrated by this state, he decided to create a forum that would allow farriers to communicate on a national level. This ambition resulted in American Farriers Journal.

It's been 35 years since Florida farrier Henry Heymering turned out the very first issue of American Farriers Journal. He published the 8-page black and white issue in March of 1975. Today, he still shoes out of Frederick, Md. By the end of the first year, Heymering had 250 paid subscribers.

How do you get owners to provide a good working area?

Just about all farriers and hoof-care professionals acknowledge that the trim is the foundation of good hoof care. There isn’t much argument about that.

The title of the new Corrective Farriery, a Textbook of Remedial Horseshoeing, Vol. II, hits the shoeing nail on the head.

I was asked to sit in on a panel discussion before more than 800 farriers at the 2006 International Hoof-Care Summit in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the topic was a debate on high nailing versus low nailing.

From 1915 to 1981, Illinois was I believe the first of only two or three states to have a licensing requirement for farriers. One of the requirements for a license was having completed a 3-year apprenticeship. Most farriers I spoke with who were affected by the licensing law had nothing good to say about it. They felt that it was unfairly applied and discriminatory. If you were friends with the examiner and/or they needed more farriers at that time, you had a much easier time of passing the test and being licensed than if you were not friends with the examiner or if they did not need more farriers — no matter how good you were.