THE YORK AND AINSTY COUNTRY. 17 



what it is capable of, I may say that the great Melbourne 

 run, an account of which will appear in its place, was a ten- 

 mile point, that only two ploughed fields were crossed, and 

 that, during the whole of this hour, the fox ran up the middle 

 of the fields, and met nothing to head him. One great 

 charm of the country is its wildness, for it is possible to 

 hunt all day and never see a team in a field or scarcely on 

 the roads, of which there are happily very few. 



Before leaving the subject of the Saturday country, it 

 should be added that Oldstead Wood and Wass, which are 

 now hunted by the Sinnington, are included within the 

 northern part of it. 



It will be seen from the foregoing description that the 

 York and Ainsty cannot now be called either a woodland or 

 a plough country, though there is a good deal of both wood- 

 land and ploughed land within its borders. The poorer land, 

 however, is slowly but surely going more and more to grass, 

 and some of it has laid itself away. If things remain as 

 they are, and as there is every prospect of their doing, the 

 farmers are likely to depend more and more upon their 

 stock, and less upon cereals, and this will have the effect of 

 bringing all but the best land back to grass. One word 

 more about the York and Ainsty country. There is perhaps 

 no country which is so little troubled with that curse of 

 modern fox-hunting, barbed wire. That a good deal of it is 

 used goes without saying, but the farmers take it down when 

 the hunting season approaches, without fee or reward, like 

 the good fellows and good sportsmen that they are. 



Surely, after all that has been said, the York and Ainsty 

 is not such a bad country to be ' banished ' to. 



