FARMING AND FOXHUNTING 



winners, which attracted the wherewithal to warrant 

 the expenditure. I have an idea that there were 

 about three partners in this development scheme — 

 Robinson, Capt. Machell, and a man called Seaton ; 

 the latter died at Foxhill in the middle of these 

 operations — poor fellow, he never saw the develop- 

 ment as we see it. 



Robinson, good fellow that he was, like most of 

 us had his failings, and one was a streak of jealousy 

 which would creep into his nature on occasion. 

 Like all energetic, forceful men, they never like to 

 be baulked in their enterprise. 



When I took over the Manor Farm in 1905 he 

 and I crossed swords. The incident occurred over 

 the renting of Manor gallops. At the time I 

 believe he was paying the very nominal rent of 

 ^2^ per annum and I thought the moment was 

 opportune to have a new arrangement. An extra 

 farmhouse I did not want ; the shooting rights I 

 could not afford ; a line of horse-boxes I could not 

 fill, and gallops I could not use. Therefore my plan 

 was to put all these superfluities to the land I 

 rented, up to let in one block at a figure in the 

 neighbourhood of ;^ 150 per annum, and since I had 

 taken the farm at about ^^^200 a year, I thought 

 that I might very well be able to find the balance of 

 the rent, that is if the bottom did not drop out of 

 farming altogether. Naturally, my friend Robinson 

 was not thinking along the same lines and hence 

 the difference of opinion which was brought to a 

 head by a real charge on horseback one morning 

 when we both met on the Downs. If we had been 



16 



