CHAPTER V. 



The Landowners, Shooting Tenants, and 

 Farmers, in Relation to Foxhunting. 



The Landowners. — The landowners are truly the 

 backbone of foxhunting, and, without their thorough 

 support of our national pastime, it would soon be 

 but a dream of the past. 



It is hardly necessary for me to mention how 

 some of our noble families, through many generations, 

 maintained and carried on at their own expense 

 large hunting establishments, and showed such 

 glorious sport from time long past to the present 

 day. Their hounds have been as honoured heirlooms, 

 and it is to these great families the hound-breeders 

 ot our day owe a deep debt of gratitude, as the 

 pedigrees of their hounds have been maintained in 

 many instances in unbroken record, the Belvoir 

 lists dating from 1750, and the Brocklesby a few 

 years later. 



In a lesser degree, and in a different way, do the 

 whole class of landowners support the noble sport 

 of foxhunting. In these days of severe agricultural 

 depression, with rents cut down to almost vanishing 

 point, their broad acres are still free and open to the 



