128 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE 



being in advance, and the other some distance behind. 

 Keep them out until one o'clock ; rest for an hour, out 

 again with the horses for three or four hours. Feed at 

 seven in the evening, and walk them again from eight 

 to nine, and before leaving them for the night, put away 

 by themselves the most quarrelsome. Pursue this plan 

 for a week to begin with, when the second exercise 

 with the horses may be dispensed with. 



As a general rule in my own kennel, our hounds were 

 seldom permitted to remain in the lodging-room during 

 the summer, except at the breakfast and dinner hours, 

 and always fed in the evening, because this practice is so 

 necessary to keep fox-hounds in health and condition, 

 and prevent them tearing each other to pieces through 

 idleness. I have said that to a good huntsman who does 

 his duty, the summer is as busy a time as the hunting- 

 season, and I mean it. There is no operation or work 

 connected with the kennel, stable, or field which I have 

 not performed with my own hand, from the dressing of a 

 horse to the mowing of a crop of grass ; and this knowledge 

 I have ever found useful to me, because if I saw any man 

 using an implement in his hand unskilfully, or doing his 

 work carelessly, I could at once show him how it ought 

 to be done. The reflection is often cast by servants on 

 their masters when finding fault, " What does he know 

 about it ? I should like to see him doing it ! " 



To a country gentleman, therefore, who is fond of 

 hunting and farming, practical knowledge is ever service- 

 able, unless he is content to yield to the dictation of his 

 huntsman, groom, or bailiff. Servants will always respect 

 those masters who know better than themselves ; and 

 there is one thing I never could endure — to be thought 

 a fool, even by a ploughboy. When, therefore, I lay 



