NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



eight-and-twenty years, the decline and fall of the landed 

 interest, and the extraordinary changes which have 

 been wrought in less than a generation. The once 

 well-to-do farmer, his capital long since clean vanished 

 in the soil, his living torn from him by foreign com- 

 petition and over-production, now worries along hope- 

 lessly from hand to mouth, scarcely daring to look the 

 future in the face. Fox-hunting has been sadly re- 

 linquished by the bulk of the tenantry of Britain. 

 Keenly though they regret the loss of the pastime, they 

 cannot afford it. From parishes where, thirty or forty 

 years ago, half a dozen farmers rode forth on hunting 

 mornings, often not a single man now turns out. Yet, 

 to his eternal credit be it said, the average British 

 farmer still turns a kindly eye upon a sport now mainly 

 patronised by strangers, still allows his land to be 

 galloped over, still does what he can to preserve foxes 

 and show sport. 



But hunting just now is passing through a very 

 critical period. Whether, as all good Englishmen hope, 

 it will emerge triumphantly from the dangers which 

 beset it, and flourish for another hundred years or two, 

 depends mainly upon its followers. Hitherto, the 

 farmer and the squire have given practically everything 

 and received very little — even of thanks — in exchange. 

 Without the land and foxes, hunting would cease in- 

 stantly. Yet the crowds of strangers who have been in 

 the habit of invading hunting countries for a generation 

 or two past, too often contributing either grudgingly 

 or not at all to the hunt funds, seem to have been under 

 the impression that they were to go on indefinitely — 

 long even after the advent of agricultural depression — 

 enjoying one of the finest sports in the world without 

 contributing more than a mere trifle towards its sup- 

 port. Even men who regularly subscribe to the hunt 



134 



