FOX-HUNTING AND MELTON 13 



might be glad of a little light on the subject. In 

 the early part of 1830 I have no doubt fences were 

 not as numerous as they are to-day, but then again 

 very little of the land had been drained, and it must 

 have been terribly holding in the winter. The ridge 

 and furrow which is now a feature of Leicestershire 

 pastures is a relict of the method of farming clay- 

 land before subsoil draining had been thought of. 

 On the flat, grass and corn would have perished 

 during a wet winter, and the only hope of a crop of 

 either was to throw the soil up in lands with the 

 plough. Of course nothing grew in the furrows, 

 but unless it was an exceptionally wet season, 

 there were hopes of a crop on the top and sides of 

 the ridge. Newcomers to the Shires now flounder 

 across these little valleys, and, cursing the roughness 

 of their horses' stride, wonder why nature thus 

 seamed the face of the country. I am not very 

 sure about my dates, but I think it was about 1840 

 or a little later that much of the grass was ploughed 

 up, the price of wheat being then exceptionally 

 high. I have a diary of my father's, dated 1835, 

 in which he mentions riding across country from 

 Ashwell — eight miles — to his own house, and he 

 remarks, " a very pretty gallop ; nice fencing, and 

 not one ploughed field." There is not much arable 

 in that line to-day, but it would not be easy to ride 

 it without getting off the grass. I suppose in those 

 days fewer people rode, and farmers did not mind 

 their land being ridden over occasionally, but it 

 would be a very unpopular thing now to go for a 

 gallop over fences without hounds. In those times 

 no one apparently objected, and, judging from 

 several entries in above-mentioned diary, it was my 



