130 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



a full hunting suit, pink coat and all. To this day most of the 

 tenant farmers in that portion of the country enjoy the sport. 

 Some one asked Lord Yarborough how he managed to secure 

 such a lot of first class tenant farmers. "I don't secure them," 

 he replied. "I breed them." This is almost literally true, for 

 most of the leases have been handed down from father to son 

 since the beginning. 



The writer well recalls a meet of these famous hounds, M. 

 F. H. the Earl of Yarborough, at the farm of Mr. Charles 

 Dudding, a famous sheep breeder. There were over two hun- 

 dred and fifty riders at this meet and over half were farmers or 

 farmers' sons. Our host stayed at home to dispense the good 

 things from his hospitable board, which were partaken of by 

 Lords and tenant farmers alike. 



Then there is the Blankney, near Nottingham, one of the 

 best all round packs of hounds the writer ever hunted with in 

 England. The Blankney is the greatest ditch country the 

 writer ever encountered. The foxes take a lot of hunting and 

 much killing but there are plenty of them and a blank day is 

 unknown. One run with this level, hard-working pack, who 

 hunt down their game in the most workmanlike manner, will 

 never be forgotten by the writer. 



With our old friend Kirkham, whom readers of "Cross 

 Country with Horse and Hound" may remember, the writer 

 started out for Bishopsthorpe for a day with the Blankney. 

 It was a prime hunting morning and our horses were quite 

 ;above themselves. Hounds jumped their fox on the way to 

 covert and we were well off before we knew what had happened. 

 The hounds swooped down the incline after him like a flock of 

 migrating birds. They ran him so hard that in the last field 

 they were not a rod from liis brush. Straight for the cottage 

 rolled the bundle of fur, the hounds gaining, but very slowly. 

 Through two or three fields hounds pressed their game hard, 

 so hard in fact, he ran straight for a little thatched cottage. 



