THE FARMERS' BOOK 



177 



To secure country sufficient for three or four days a week the 

 season through there must be dependence on the favour of the owners 

 and occupiers of land, and inquiry must be made whether a meet at 

 a particular time will be convenient, and those who provide the 

 country treated with consideration. This 

 means time, trouble, and tact, and getting to 

 know your farmers. 



The details of all these complex matters, 

 as they relate to T.F.B., are preserved in a 

 book of miscellaneous information collected 

 together in Carr-Ellison's time, as is shown 

 by the fact that all memoranda of an earlier 

 date are copied in in his handwriting. His 



personal contributions, which are ^ 



many, are distinguished by his initials. 

 There are also many subsequent en- 

 tries, of which, however, the greater 

 number are entered by " K. W." 

 (Kenneth Walker), and the volume is 

 commonly known as " The Farmers' 

 Book," as its principal object is to 

 preserve information as to the details 

 of meets and particulars of the farmers 

 with whom they must be arranged — in which connection there are 

 many shrewd and amusing observations on human nature, and on the 

 gentle art of " buttering." The volume has, however, been used as a 

 commonplace book for jotting down all sorts of memoranda, and 

 there is much that, mutatis mutandis, must be valuable to those who 

 are organising other packs, especially as beagling is a growing sport. 

 The pages contain also many points of history interesting to our- 

 selves. 



The entries do not date back before the time when we had our 

 own Kennels, and as a record of management this is no drawback. 

 Hounds " standing at livery " in the back yard of an old-world 

 Cambridge inn, whose sanitation must have been what that of 

 picturesque old buildings usually is, and fed on college scraps, from 



N 



A T.F.B. Secretary. 



