242 THE BROCKLESBY HOUNDS. 



woodland district, and Caistor also is quite close to the 

 woodlands and the wolds. From Louth one can catch 

 both the South Wold and the Brocklesby, and from Market 

 Rasen the South Wold, the Burton, and the Brocklesby. 

 People boxing from the north and west should come east 

 of Brocklesby to Habrough, Stallingborough, Healing, 

 Great Coates, or Grimsby for the best of the country, and 

 to Brocklesby, Barnetby, and Howsham for the woodlands. 

 The wolds are most of an hour's trot from a railway station 

 on this side. On the Lincoln line the wolds are nearer, 

 Holton-le-Moor, Moortown, and Barnetby bringing one 

 within reasonable reach ; and from Ludborough, North 

 Thoresby, Holton-le-Clay, AValtham, and Grimsby on the 

 Great Northern Railway, visitors from the South Wold 

 country can get to some of the best meets of the Brock- 

 lesby on the east side. 



Lincolnshire has always been famous for its horses, 

 both for home-bred ones and those purchased young and 

 converted into hunters or steeplechase horses. This is 

 what the " Druid " says in " Post and the Paddock " — 



" The great nurseries of English hunters are the North and East Hidings of 

 Yorkshire, more especially on the Wolds, and tlie whole of Lincolnshire and 

 Shropshire. The Lincolnshire hunters are still first rate, but they are bred in 

 fewer numbers than they were in Dick Burton's hunting prime, owing principally 

 to the improved system of cultivation, which has caused much second-rate grass 

 land to be ploughed up. Hence the number of brood mares is rather limited, 

 and the farmers have to resort to Howden Fair, which is the largest market in 

 the world for unmade hunters and carriage-horses. Scarcely any of them are 

 tied in rows, but they are generally ridden or led about the town, whose long 

 High Street is for four or five days one surging sea of animal life. Hosts of 

 Lincolnshire farmers may be found there each September, picking up four-year- 

 old hunters, at prices which ranged from £80 to £100, but now more generally 

 from £100 to £120. The himting dealers also attend, not to buy, but to glean 

 information about promising horses ; they learn where they go to, and occasion- 

 ally, if they take a very strong fancy, purchase a contingent interest in some of 

 them. The new owners aim at keeping them at least a year, but seldom more 

 than two, and they frequently find them a temporary stablemate at the great 

 Lincoln Fair each April. The latter are expected to produce a profit of twenty- 

 eight to twenty-five per cent, for their three months' strong keep up to Horn- 

 castle, or else they hardly realize their new owners' sole idea of ' paying for 

 August.' " 



Then again : — 



" The Yarborough, South Wold, and Burton Hunts," says Mr. Dixon, "are 



