HISTORY OF THE KILDARE HUNT 



Baron took over were, of course, unaltered, and 

 there is ample evidence that the ardent spirit which 

 had animated the Hunt to repair the damages to 

 the coverts which had been wrought by the disas- 

 trous Crimean winter had been eminently success- 

 ful. I have recorded on a former page how mem- 

 bers, each in his own district, had combined by 

 planting or fencing to make good the devastation 

 which had left the Hunt with a bare fifty coverts 

 fit to draw. The result of this co-operation, though 

 gradually displaying itself throughout his Master- 

 ship, was perhaps only fully visible at the time that 

 Lord Naas gave up the hounds. At any rate, a list 

 published during a middle year of Baron de Ro- 

 beck's term discloses the fact that in the year 1865 

 the Hunt possessed 116 coverts, all apparently in 

 reasonable condition. Many of these, of course, 

 were demesnes, as to-day, others were given by 

 landowners, both by hunting men and by sports- 

 men who did not themselves follow hounds but 

 still wished the Hunt well; some again by ladies. 

 Many, of course, were rented. The highest rent paid 

 in that year was, I find, for Eadstown, which cost 

 £iS' The majority were at a lower figure, with an 

 average perhaps of £^. Later in the Baron's 

 Mastership a luxury was indulged in in the taking 

 of Elverstown; £2 an acre was paid for that famous 

 cover, and as it measured eleven acres and a 

 302 



