50 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



deal with I ever saw. In general their lands are leased to them, 

 and the acres are the property of colleges ; these tenants, there- 

 fore, are totally independent on any landlord, and, of course, 

 there are no reservations as to sporting. It is the fashion for 

 one class of politicians to say, that if we had more leases we 

 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 Harrow 

 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 them, their parlour boarder. Exceptions 

 prove the rule ; of course there are some very worthy men 

 among them. 



When the hounds crossed the Harrow country, the gentle- 

 men with me were often hunted as well as hunting, and frequent 



