172 THE HUNTING FIELD 



enjoys from youth to age what others slave and toil in hopes 

 of reaching at the end. Farming is the nearest approach to 

 primitive independence of any calling we can adopt. The 

 Farmer is his own master, and though he may not derive so 

 large an apparent income as the investor of monej' in, or 

 follower of other pursuits, yet when we come to see what the 

 Farmer gets for nothing, that others have to pay for, and 

 observe how one thing dovetails in with another, it will be found 

 that after all, the enjoyments of life are not regulated by the 

 figures in three ruled columns of red ink, but in making the 

 most of such advantages as circumstances afford and put in 

 our way. Take a horse for instance — a Farmer will keep a 

 horse well for five-and-twenty pounds a-year, whereas the 

 Londoner will have to pay his guinea a-week for the keep of 

 his, and then very likely only have it half " done by." There 

 is cent, per cent, at once, and there is much the same difference 

 in the price of articles of domestic consumption. To talk of 

 dining with a Farmer is enough to set a Cockne3''s mouth 

 watering for a week — the very mention of the thing conjures 

 up all sorts of anticipations of pure, wholesome, rich, abun- 

 dant e.xcellence. The prime home-fed beef, the dark graveyed 

 mutton, the clean-fed pork, the plump white turkey, the 

 delicate chicken, the beautiful ham, the mealy potato, the 

 scarlet beet, above all, the fine, bright, home-brewed October, 

 and home-made butter and cheese. A large farmhouse is a 

 sort of general provision warehouse, containing the genuine, 

 unadulterated article. Who ever got a snack of anything at a 

 farmhouse without thinking it e.xcellent ? Who so truly 

 hospitable as the Farmer ? He gives what he has freel)' and 

 heartily, and never apologizes for the absence of what he has 

 not. Who ever hunted in the midland counties without 

 retaining a gratified recollection of the e.xcellence of the 

 Farmer's pork-pies ? The Lewes sausages of former da3s will 

 still smack on the palates of many. Again, what place so 



