22 THE AMERICAN FOXHOUND 



frequently liunt our hounds three or four weeks on a stretch ; 

 unless badly used up they must go every day, and it takes bull- 

 dog courage to go at all times and under all conditions. TJiere 

 are other gentlemen in this county who have just as good 

 hounds as I ever owned, just as well bred and the same stock, I 

 do not claim to have a cinch on the strain. I have sold a few 

 hounds, and bought four times as many from my hunting com- 

 panions for other sportsmen in different parts of the United 

 States, without compensation. I am ever willing to help 

 brother hunters secure what they want. You will hardly find a 

 hound here, that is a fox dog, that does not tmce back to the 

 hounds mentioned in this letter. Hunters here at home give me 

 credit for honesty of purpose and the credit of breeding this 

 strain of hounds ; for the opinion of some others I do not care a 

 bauble. 



If a hound is of no account, I am one of the first to condemn 

 him, let him belong to king, prince or pauper. I have no ax to 

 grind and am not prejudiced for or against any hound or strain 

 of hounds. There are good and bad hounds in all strains, and 

 the best strain is that which produces the greatest number of 

 first-class red fox hounds. 



A Georgia gentleman wrote me not long ago that he was 

 tlioroughly convinced that we in the blue grass district of 

 Kentucky could breed a better hound from the same stock than 

 they could in Georgia; just as we could breed better horses, 

 cattle or mules, because our climate, our blue grass, and our 

 strong limestone soil and water, are all conducive to bone and 

 muscle. But the same stock grows larger in Missouri than in 

 Kentucky ; our hounds do not average thirty inches around the 

 cliest. I have never seen a foxliound so large. I have measured 

 over a hundred in different states and have never found one 

 twenty-nine inches. Our hounds are from twenty to twenty- 

 three inches high and twenty-four to twenty-seven inches a- 

 round the chest. Take two inches off those Missouri hounds 

 and they will be plenty large then, I tliink the Brunswick Fur 

 Club is about convinced after last year's experience that our 

 Southern foxliounds can kill their Northern red foxes. They 

 had at that meet some of the Goodman foxliounds, and I hope to 

 be present with them myself at their next meet. 



