The Duke of Buccleueh's. 431 



side of the Border. Waves of rich, undulating, 

 arable form the ground-work, broken here and there 

 by detached olf-shoots of the mountain ranges 

 looming- on the outskirts. The soil, though fertile 

 and highly tilled, is never deep, and carries a scent 

 as it carries a horse — firmly and steadily, almost 

 uniformly. The in-country hills are steep but ride- 

 able ; and breed a race of foxes that can travel like 

 wolves. When winter weather, or a hill-pack, has 

 driven them down from their upper fastnesses, they 

 are often to be found at great distances from their 

 former home, and will give fine sport in their efforts to 

 return. A blown fox can no more mount a steep 

 ascent than a blown horse ; and so, if pressed at first, 

 they will scarcely do more than skirt the hillsides or 

 turn down again, as soon as he reaches them. The 

 ploughed land of these open vales possesses a stronger 

 combination of the essentials for enjoyable sport than 

 are often credited to cultivation and crop-growing. 

 The five-years- system on which it is tilled gives two 

 years to grass, one to turnips, and two to corn. A 

 foxhunter need not be a farmer to know that even 

 new grass will carry a scent on most soils, or that 

 turnips generally speak strongly to a fox^s passage. 

 But he must accept the testimony of the natives that, 

 whether in Northumberland or just over the border, 

 hounds can almost always bring a fair head across 

 these northern fallows. Again, the grass — which a 

 mind of very ordinary mathematical capacity will 

 understand to be at all times two-fifths of the whole — 

 is of course sound going; while the same evidence 

 vouches for the fact that turnips and fallows may be 



