62 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



should have better farming ; but, if we are to judge by 

 the way the majority of the Harrow farmers farm 

 their land, those politicians are egregiously in error. 

 The principal produce of these heavy clay soils is hay ; 

 and the land in winter is so wet and so badly drained 

 that, in the state in which it was when I hunted 

 over it, it would not carry sheep. The grass and 

 the absence of sheep made it the finest possible 

 ground for holding a scent ; at the same time I have 

 no hesitation in saying that it was the deepest 

 country I ever crossed with hounds. I speak the 

 exact truth in declaring, that, after a frost, with a 

 wet thaw set in, I have met with a nice green looking^ 

 even grass field, in which, when the horse landed, 

 he could make but a trot. The depth of the ground 

 made the fences large, otherwise, take the chief of 

 the Harrow Vale, the hedges are fair enough, and 

 no double ditches. When the hounds ran towards 

 Barnet, then, on the drier undulations of the vale, 

 where there are oxen, the fences became severer, 

 and the weak places in them usually strengthened 

 with a rail. I have often wondered that, so near 

 the London market, and with such facilities for 

 manure, as well as intercourse with enlightened 

 people, the farmers near HarroAV were not more 

 civilised and better agriculturists ; but in their case, 

 as in some few others, it seems as if improvement 

 and progress had sprung from London with a hop, 

 step, and jump over their heads, and alighted again in 

 Hertfordshire. These people are no sportsmen, their 

 houses and yards do not resemble jolly farms, and, 

 as to the nurture within and without, a pig might 

 be, with some of tliem^ their parlour boarder. Excep- 



