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Report of the Judges on the 
may be arrived at, and that those splendid new pastures may 
not be ploughed up as the executors' last resource. 
The farms that we inspected, and the district generally, 
seemed free from the ravages of game. Upon all farms there 
was some ground game, which is invariably reserved by the 
landlord, and in a few fields of oats and wheat hares had cut off 
large handfuls of ears to make their paths and play-places. In 
thin corns, which are common this year, the pastime of these 
interesting but most destructive animals soon takes off a bushel 
an acre from the yield, and they are yet more troublesome in 
a dry season among the mangold plants. Upon one farm we 
saw evidence that previously a large head of rabbits had been 
preserved, for the banks and fences had been seriously injured, 
although otherwise singularly neatly kept. Happily they had been 
killed down within very reasonable limits ; but whether from a 
sense of the injustice of annoying and injuring an exceptionally 
good tenant, the influence our Report would have, or the dread of 
the Ground Game Act, we could not determine. That Act seems 
to have made but little difference in the relations of landlord 
and tenant upon all farms where only a moderate amount of 
game is kept. The tenants we visited were all determined not 
to interfere in any way with the reasonable sport of the owner, 
but there seemed a general impression that the result of the 
Act would be " to make the landlords trust their tenants more, 
and their gamekeepers less ;" and if no other good results from 
it, that will be no inconsiderable gain to the farmers of England. 
The wet seasons have terribly injured almost all the grass-land 
we inspected. One serious evil was the prevalence of rot 
among the sheep, which had not only diminished the numbers 
kept, but some farmers had resolved never to have another 
sheep upon their land. The damage from rot was not only 
upon the flooded meadows, it extended to many commonly dry 
pastures. Upon such soils the character of the herbage had 
been entirely changed by the long prevalence of wet weather. 
The finer grasses had disappeared, and the coarser sub-aquatic 
grasses had taken their place, and " hassocks " appeared in 
fields that never before produced them. In the furrows and 
low spots of some meadows they had taken entire possession of 
the land. The cost of the removal of these " hassocks " will be 
a great expense to the tenant for many years to come. 
But the fear of a continuance of the rot upon unflooded pastures 
appears to us unfounded. After a roasting summer like this, 
the insect which has slain its thousands must perish from lack 
of moisture ; and we hope that the stock of sheep around Derby, 
which has so seriously diminished within the past two years, will 
be soon restored to their previous numbers. Yet the serious 
