Stanley Kanski, age 14, of Camden, N.J., for his question:

WHAT IS A FARRIER?

At one time, blacksmiths who shod horses were called farriers. Farrier comes from a Latin word that means "of iron."

The farrier, or blacksmith, made repairs on iron objects by hammering them by hand on an anvil. He would first heat the iron to a red glow in a forge he kept hot by hand operated bellows.

Next the smith would shape and weld his iron items. Perhaps the most important articles that farriers made in the past were the horseshoes that protected the feet of horses.

The farrier job has almost completely been eliminated by mass production methods and the invention of the automoble. There are only a few of these craftsmen around these days and they can usually be found only in rural areas or where horse stables have been established for recreational purposes.