276 THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE HOUNDS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



FARMERS AND FOX-HUNTING. 



The welfare of any Hunt so largely depends upon the 

 good-will and co-operation of the tenant farmers of the 

 district, that no Hunt book would seem complete without 

 something more than a passing reference to the obligations 

 under which fox- hunters are placed to the farmers whose 

 land they ride over, and without whose forbearance and loyal 

 support hunting would be simply impossible. We have 

 already, in earlier chapters of this volume, expressed our 

 sense of the loyalty of the farmers as a body to the cause 

 of fox-hunting in the North Staffordshire country, but the 

 subject is one that calls for and requires more than a 

 merely casual reference of this kind. We are aware that 

 there is a tendency amongst certain persons to represent 

 the British farmer as a proverbial and wholesale grumbler 

 who is always growling at the weather and the seasons, 

 and the crops, at the prices of stock and produce ; as a 

 man who is never satisfied, whatever is done for him 

 by his landlord or his neighbours. The present writer 

 is far from sharing this view. On the contrary, after 

 a long and tolerably intimate knowledge of the farmers 

 of this country, he confesses to being often astonished 

 at their patience and contentment under trials and 

 difficulties which beset them almost more than any class 

 of men. 



What class is there who carry on their business under 

 more adverse circumstances than the agriculturist class ? 

 Who is there that has to contend with circumstances over 



