THE BROCKLESBY TENANTRY. 



I HAVE dedicated this book to the tenant farmers of the 

 Brocklesby Hunt, and I think it will not be inappropriate 

 if my last words have reference to them as well. 



This is what Mr. Delme Eadcliffe has to say about 

 the Brocklesby tenant farmers in " Notititia Venatica " : 



" I am informed, on the indisputable authority of an 

 intimate friend, who was well acquainted with the late 

 Lord Yarborough, that his lordship was in the constant 

 habit of making compensation to all the farmers of the 

 country over which he hunted who could lay claim to any 

 injury done to their crops. After a very wet season, he 

 sent for one farmer in particular, the proprietor of a field 

 by the side of a favourite covert, to which, owing to the 

 scarcity of foxes in other parts of the Hunt, they had been 

 obliged to have constant recourse. At the end of the 

 season this field was literally destroyed, to all appearance 

 — not a vestige of a blade of wheat being visible, and the 

 soil resembling that of a muddy lane. " I have sent for 

 you," said Lord Yarborough to the farmer, " to ofler you 

 the fair value of the wheat field, which was so trampled 

 upon last season, that I fear you must have been wholly 

 disappointed of your harvest." " On no account, my 

 lord," replied this true specimen of an English farmer, 

 " upon no account can I consent to take a farthing of 

 remuneration. So far from the disappointment, for which 

 I was prepared, never in any previous year have I had so 

 good a crop as has been reaped this harvest in that very 

 field, which at the close of the hunting season looked truly 

 unpromising enough." 



Mr. Cavil Lowish tells me of a similar occurrence in 



