248 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



summered in the fields, only amounts, after all, to 

 £13, i8s. ; three pounds of which would at least be 

 repaid in manure made in the time. As to the sum 

 of £13, i8s., at least twice that amount would be 

 realised in the value of any one of the horses if he were 

 exposed to sale at the commencement of the following 

 hunting season, 



" You are a great man for proof," said a friend to 

 me a short time since ; " why do you not offer the 

 following bet to the sporting world, and I will go 

 your halves ? Let two hunters be tried to within 

 half a pound of each other, on the 20th of April, 

 when hunting generally is at an end ; and let one be 

 turned out to grass on the ist of May, and taken up 

 on the ist of August, and let the other be summered 

 on your plan in the house. Give the horse summered 

 in the fields a stone, and run him two miles for two 

 hundred guineas on the ist of November." My 

 answer to this was, that, in the first place, the sum 

 proposed was unnecessarily large for the object of 

 deciding the question ; and, in the next place, 14 lb. 

 was great weight to give ; but as far as one hundred 

 guineas for the match, and 10 lb. as the weight given, 

 I was open to any man who would accept the challenge 

 and think it but fair to say I have no doubt of the 

 result. 



I perfectly agree with my friend in thinking that 

 on matters of this nature proof is everything ; and 

 by way of proving the value of condition, I am willing 

 to expose the history of my own stable, which will 

 shew that the value of the animal does not consist 



