1c2 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
forward to their letting season in the same way as at the 
sea-side and in London. ‘This is an immense breach in 
the ancient isolated manners of country life. The old 
farmers, and only a very little time ago, would as soon 
have thought of flying as of opening their doors to 
strangers, and indeed their rooms were scarcely furnished 
in a way to receive them. On the other hand, many 
farmhouses are empty altogether, and the land is un- 
tilled, because it cannot be let at any price, and lapsing 
backwards into barbarism. Everything used to be so 
fixed: there was a sort of caste of farmers. A man 
_ born in a farmhouse never thought of anything else 
but farming, and waited and waited, perhaps till he was 
grey, to get a farm ; now there are few who have such 
fixed ideas, they are ready to take a chance at home or 
abroad. Yet it is the same old country, and with the 
new ways and science, and learning, and civilisation, it 
is as with the machinery, they are all sunk and lost in the 
firm old lines. It is all changed and just the same. 
What a clamour there used to be about the damage 
done by the hares and rabbits to the crops! By-and- 
by Parliament said, ‘Shoot the hares and rabbits.’ To 
work they went and demolished them, and now, lo! 
there is a feeling getting about that we don’t want to 
be rid of all the hares and rabbits. Hares are almost 
formed on purpose to be good sport, and make a jolly 
good dish, a pleasant addition to the ceascless round of 
mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation 
reduces us. Coursing is capital, the harriers first-rate. 
Now every man who walks about the ficlds is more or 
Icss at heart a sportsman, and the farmer having got 
the right of the gun he is not unlikely to become to 
some extent a game preserver. When they could not 
get it they wanted to destroy it, now they have got it 
