NOBLESSE OBLIGE 49 



parkland, engrossing farm after farm — a state 

 of things which became worse when you 

 entered the county of Surrey. 



They were proud of the fact that they had 

 ploughed up the trotting track at Southwick, 

 sowing the 24 acres with wheat, and the golf 

 links of Horsham and Chichester, covering 

 34 acres ; and 90 acres of West Grinstead 

 Park, where deer were kept, and 100 acres at 

 Shermanbury Park. But in the five large parks 

 which I walked over after I left Chichester — 

 Goodwood, West Dean, Cowdray, Petworth, 

 and Arundel — very little had been done. 



In these five huge parks no fresh land had 

 been ploughed up, excepting a few acres where 

 the remounts had been stationed in Petworth 

 Park. One would imagine that noblesse oblige 

 would have spurred these owners of old titles 

 to be the first to move, following the example 

 of the Duke of Marlborough, instead of suffer- 

 ing the humiliation of being ordered to plough, 

 when their country was threatened by semi- 

 starvation, and their estates by invasion. 



The Duke of Richmond had not then 

 received any orders to break up land. It is 

 true that he kept a good number of sheep — 

 from 1 000 to 1 100 — but as deer should give way 

 to sheep, so sheep should have been made to 

 give way to wheat. Outside the park gates a 

 meadow, where ewes were brought in at lamb- 

 ing-time, had been ploughed up, and the sheep 

 4 



