HUNTING TOURS. 269 



I was as nearly as possible being victimised. 

 The object for so placing it can simply be to 

 prevent anything passing along the road from 

 trespassing, and being only the breadth of 

 the road from the fence over which I had 

 ridden, the hounds running hard and straight 

 across the field, I was nearly on the wire 

 before I caught sight of it. The reasons 

 assigned for the use of these wire impedi- 

 ments are economy, and in some places defi- 

 ciency of timber wherewithal to make good 

 the fences. So great has been the outcry 

 against trees in hedge rows, that on several 

 estates they have been nearly exterminated. 

 Too great a profusion of trees is doubtless 

 injurious, and the other extreme is equally 

 objectionable. I would be the last to wish 

 farmers to incur unnecessary expenses to 

 their disadvantage, but T am certain all 

 reasonable men, even if they do not partici- 

 pate in foxhunting, will concur that it is 

 an amusement of the utmost importance to 

 their profits, interest, and welfare, and in 

 no county is it more essentially so than in 

 Leicestershire. The immense sums of money 

 annually expended by noblemen and gentle- 

 men who take up their winter quarters at 



