GAME PRESERVES. 121 





low-rented. Small farmers, of whom there are many, are suffer- 

 ing most severely, as they have not saved any thing in good times 

 to fall back upon now. Some of them are, indeed, greatly re- 

 duced, and we heard of one who had applied to his parish for 

 relief. Others have sold every thing off their farms, and some, 

 we were told, had not even seed corn left with which to sow their 

 fields. 



" In a fine country, with a gently undulating surface and a soil 

 dry and easy of culture, laid into large fields moderately rented, 

 one is surprised to hear that there is so much complaint and so 

 much real suffering among the poorer class of farmers. It is 

 only in part accounted for by the devastation of game, which on 

 this and some other noblemen's estates in North Northampton- 

 shire, is still most strictly preserved. On the 24th of January 

 last, seven guns, as we were told, on the Marquis's estate, killed 

 430 head of game, a most immoderate quantity at such a late 

 period of the season. The fields are all stuck about with bushes 

 to prevent the poachers netting; and the farmers feel most 

 severely the losses they sustain, in order that their landlord and 

 his friends may not be deprived of their sport. The strict pres- 

 ervation of game on this and some other estates in the northern 

 parts of the county, was described to us in the bitterest terms, as 

 i completely eating up the tenant farmer, and against which no 

 man can farm or live upon the farm.' It is * the last ounce that 

 breaks the camel's back,' and men who might have made a man- 

 ful struggle against blighted crops and low prices, are overborne 

 by a burden which they feel to be needlessly inflicted, and of 

 which they dare not openly complain. 



" In consequence of the distress among the small farmers, many 

 of the laborers would have been thrown out of employment had 

 work not been found for them by the Marquis in stubbing and 

 clearing woodland, which will thus be reclaimed for cultivation. 



