116 The Hunting Countries of England. 



Castle Rising and the Massingham district, and the 

 Sandringham side, is of the easiest type — thorn fences 

 on banks, with occasional small ditches, and sheep- 

 hurdles everywhere : and the young farmers, in making 

 their rounds, seldom go to the trouble of opening a gate. 

 East of the Kennels, again, is a much more strongly 

 fenced country — the banks are big, the ditches are 

 double, and the thorn used to grow to great strength. 

 Many of the old hedges have in recent years 

 been cut and lowered ; but still there is always 

 enough growth to constitute a fence above the bank, 

 and weak interstices are filled up with stout thorn 

 wattle. From Watton up to Fakenham is all fenced 

 in this way ; and is a strong good soil, upon which 

 grass freely intermingles with the plough. The light 

 country of the west, on the contrary, is all light, flinty, 

 arable — wild and open, with many acres of waste 

 heath and gorse upon which rabbits flourish by hun- 

 dreds. The land is scantily populated; and you may 

 ride a bee line from the Kennels down to Hilborough 

 with scarcely a cottage in view by the way. Towards 

 Sandringham, too, there is nothing but light gallop- 

 ing over quite an open country. In the winter all the 

 sheep are hurdled in their turnip-pens ; there are no 

 cattle to soil the ground ; and with the surface thus 

 sweet and clean, hounds have every chance in the 

 lighter country. They want rain_, and plenty of it. 

 Given this, they will run well. The ground game may 

 be puzzling to youthful noses ; but there is so much 

 of it that hounds seldom take long to acquire a proper 

 sense of discrimination. 



Sound, good, feet of course are veiy necessary for 



