REMINISCENCES OF BERT DRAGE 



you could have them all back, what on earth could 

 we do with them ? " I think we were about 

 £3,000 losers over it. 



We had some very good horses left, and sold 

 them privately very well. I had a good order to 

 find the Cheshire Hunt horses, and then we sent 

 a good many to America. 



Dick Farmer, joined up, and John volunteered 

 but did not pass and I wrote to the War 

 Office offering my services in the various 

 horse depots. But they wrote back and said the 

 way we could help them best was to collect all the 

 suitable horses we could and give the buyer a show 

 as often as we could. Of course, it just suited 

 us, and we must have sold hundreds of horses and 

 cobs and draught horses. 



I set several capable fellows to work to help to 

 find them, and I got Gale over from Ireland, too. 

 The place was full of horses, and they were tied 

 up all round the cattle yards too, and a lot in the 

 fields. 



We had visits from various army buyers, and it is 

 gratifying to know that we never got censured for 

 anything that we sold. Directly we could see that 

 the war could not last much longer, we set to work 

 to buy again, as I knew what a good demand there 

 would be for hunters. 



I took exception to the way two of our customers 

 behaved. They wanted to return horses bought 

 by them during the summer to hunt in the winter. 

 This, I thought, was very unfair to me, as my 



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