56 Tiie Hunting Countries of England, 



their winners at tlie sliow were all tlie progeny of 

 famous workers. With tlienij a hound faulty in the 

 chase is not good enough to keep, still less to breed 

 from — a summary system upon which a younger 

 kennel can seldom afford to act rigidly. 



Their country is essentially one for bringing hounds 

 out to advantage; and, while offering them every 

 opportunity and encouragement, will quickly make 

 patent any radical failing. There are large tracts of 

 woodland for cubhunting, schooling, and practising — 

 wild straight foxes and an open country elsewhere — 

 the scent seldom strong enough to carry hounds out 

 of reach — and few difficulties to part them from the 

 huntsman and his attendant lictors. There was a 

 time, the natives say, when all the Fitzwilliam 

 country was grass — and wild wet grass on which 

 scent hovered naturally. Now the bulk of its broad 

 acres are condemned to grow wheat that does not 

 pay for sowing — and, easy though it is to root up 

 pasturage, farmers cannot afford the lengthy process 

 of restoring it. And so is it, in more or less degree, 

 all over England. Farmers cannot compete in the 

 corn market against importation ; their crops scarcely 

 cover the needed outlay; and thousands of arable 

 farms are consequently going begging. But if tenants 

 have seldom either capital or inclination to lay down 

 herbage in place of the unremunerative ploughland, 

 landlords must do it soon — or be content to see their 

 farms unoccupied. Then will grazing resume its 

 sway — we shall ride over grass everywhere — and 

 Ware wheat will be a cry unknown ! That such a 

 consummatioh would be desirable in the Fitzwilliam 



