96 LARGE COVERS PREFERABLE 



discipline. Either hares are less plentiful in 

 other countries, or other sportsmen are less nice 

 in making their hounds steady from them. 



I would advise you to hunt your large covers 

 with your young hounds : it will tire them 

 out;* a necessary step towards making them 

 steady ; — will open the cover against the time 

 you begin in earnest ; and, by disturbing the 

 large covers early in the year, foxes will be 

 shy of them in the season, and show you better 

 chases : besides, as they are not likely to break 

 from thence, you can do no hurt to the corn, 

 and may begin before it is cut. 



If your hounds are very riotous, and you are 

 obliged to stop them very often from hare, it 

 will be advisable, I think, to try on (however 

 late it may be) till you find a fox, as the giving 

 them encouragement should, at such a time, 

 prevail over every other consideration. 



Though all young hounds, I believe, are 



* Provided that you have old hounds enough out to carry- 

 on the scent : if you have not a body of old hounds to keep 

 up a cry on the right scent, the young ones, as soon as the 

 ground becomes foiled, will be scattered about the cover, 

 hunting old scents, and will not get on fast enough to tire 

 themselves. Young hounds should never be taken into 

 large covers where there is much riot, unless whippers-in 

 can easily get at them. 



