INTRODUCTION xxi 



with walled gardens, vinery, conservatory, pleasure ground, 

 gardener's house, a park, consisting of 100 acres of pasture land ; 

 sporting over upwards of 2,000 acres, including about 400 acres of 

 covert. 



He then turned farmer, taking a couple of farms on the estate. 

 It was at this time that Apperley had the happy idea of turning his 

 sporting experiences to the best account in the literary line ; for this 

 purpose" he entered into an engagement with the proprietor of the 

 Sioorting Magazine to contribute his "Letters on Hunting," under 

 the pseudonym of " Nimrod," which soon became renowned in the 

 sporting w^orld. He made tours professionally into almost all the 

 hunting counties in England at the expense of the magazine ; the 

 proprietor found the cost of his horses, servants, and everything at 

 an average outlay, during the six seasons he was so engaged, of 

 fifteen hundred a year. "The Hunting Tours" therefore repre- 

 sented an outlay of Nine Thousand pounds in working expenses, and 

 they contain the best of Nimrod's experiences, commencing with 

 the elite headquarteirs of Leicestershire with all "the great Masters"; 

 Oxfordshire and Warwickshire followed under similarly favourable 

 auspices ; Surrey, Sussex, the Hunting Seasons of 1823-4 treated 

 exhaustively ; Dorset and Devon ; Hampshire and the H.H., or 

 Hampshire and the Hambledon Hounds ; the Tour of 1825, 

 embracing accounts of the Hounds of Sir Thomas Mostyn, the old 

 Berkeley, Duke of Grafton, Duke of Beaufort, the Warwickshire, 

 Colonel Berkeley (Lord Seagrave), Lord Anson (Earl of Lichfield), 

 the Quorn, Duke of Rutland and Mr. Nichol ; a fortnight in the New 

 Forest ; the second Tour embracing accounts of the Warwickshire 

 Hounds under Mr. Hay, Mr. Boycott's, the Shropshire under Sir 

 Bellingham Graham, the Cheshire under Sir Henry Main waring. 

 Sir Eichard Puleston's, the Northamptonshire under Mr. Musters ; 

 the Yorkshire Tour containing accounts of the Eaby Pack, the York 

 and Ainsty, the Hurworth, the Holderness, the Badsworth, &c., 

 under the respective management of the Earl of Darlington (Duke 

 of Cleveland), Mr. Ralph Lambton, Mr. Lloyd, Sir Tatton Sykes, 

 Mr. Matthew Wilkinson, Mr. Thomas Hodgson, and Lord Hawke ; 

 concluding with later visits to Leicestershire, and to the New Forest 

 with Mr. John Warde. 



