Few hunting men calculate how much they owe to the hunting
farmer, or recognize the fact that hunting farmers contribute

more than any other class of sportsmen towards the maintenance of
the sport. It is hardly too much to say that hunting would be

impossible if farmers did not hunt. If they were inimical to
hunting, and men so closely concerned must be friends or

enemies, there would be no foxes left alive; and no fox, if
alive, could be kept above ground. Fences would be impracticable,

and damages would be ruinous; and any attempt to maintain the
institution of hunting would be a long warfare in which the

opposing farmer would certainly be the ultimateconqueror. What
right has the hunting man who goes down from London, or across

from Manchester, to ride over the ground which he treats as if it
were his own, and to which he thinks that free access is his

undoubted privilege ? Few men, I fancy, reflect that they have no
such right, and no such privilege, or recollect that the very

scene and area of their exercise, the land that makes hunting
possible to them, is contributed by the farmer. Let any one

remember with what tenacity the exclusive right of entering upon
their small territories is clutched and maintained by all

cultivators in other countries; let him remember the enclosures
of France, the vine and olive terraces of Tuscany, or the

narrowly-watched fields of Lombardy; the little meadows of
Switzerland on which no stranger's foot is allowed to come, or

the Dutch pastures, divided by dykes, and made safe from all
intrusions. Let him talk to the American farmer of English

hunting, and explain to that independent, but somewhat prosaic
husbandman, that in England two or three hundred men claim the

right of access to every man's land during the whole period of
the winter months ! Then, when he thinks of this, will he realize

to himself what it is that the English farmer contributes to
hunting in England ? The French countryman cannot be made to

understand it. You cannot induce him to believe that if he held
land in England, looking to make his rent from tender young

grass-fields and patches of sprouting corn, he would be powerless
to keep out intruders, if those intruders came in the shape of a

rushing squadron of cavalry, and called themselves a hunt. To
him, in accordance with his existing ideas, rural life under such

circumstances would be impossible. A small pan of charcoal, and
an honourable death-bed, would give him relief after his first

experience of such an invasion.
Nor would the English farmer put up with the invasion, if the

English farmer were not himself a hunting man. Many farmers,
doubtless, do not hunt, and they bear it, with more or less

grace; but they are inured to it from their infancy, because it
is in accordance with the habits and pleasures of their own race.

Now and again, in every hunt, some man comes up, who is, indeed,
more frequently a small proprietor new to the glories of

ownership, than a tenant farmer, who determines to vindicate his
rights and oppose the field. He puts up a wire-fence round his

domain, thus fortifying himself, as it were, in his citadel, and
defies the world around him. It is wonderful how great is the

annoyance which one such man may give, and how thoroughly he may
destroy the comfort of the coverts in his neighbourhood. But,

strong as such an one is in his fortress, there are still the
means of fighting him. The farmers around him, if they be hunting

men, make the place too hot to hold him. To them he is a thing
accursed, a man to be spoken of with all evil language, as one

who desires to get more out of his land than Providence, that
is, than an English Providence, has intended. Their own wheat is

exposed, and it is abominable to them that the wheat of another
man should be more sacred than theirs.

All this is not sufficiently remembered by some of us when the
period of the year comes which is trying to the farmer's

heart, when the young clover is growing, and the barley has been
just sown. Farmers, as a rule, do not think very much of their

wheat. When such riding is practicable, of course they like to
see men take the headlands and furrows; but their hearts are not

broken by the tracks of horses across their wheat-fields. I
doubt, indeed, whether wheat is ever much injured by such usage.

But let the thoughtful rider avoid the new-sown barley; and,
above all things, let him give a wide berth to the new-laid

meadows of artificial grasses. They are never large, and may
always be shunned. To them the poaching of numerous horses is

absolute destruction. The surface of such enclosures should be as
smooth as a billiard-table, so that no water may lie in holes;

and, moreover, any young plant cut by a horse's foot is trodden
out of existence. Farmers do see even this done, and live through

it without open warfare; but they should not be put to such
trials of temper or pocket too often.

And now for my friend the hunting farmer in person, the
sportsman whom I always regard as the most indispensable adjunct

to the field, to whom I tender my spare cigar with the most
perfect expression of my good will. His dress is nearly always

the same. He wears a thick black coat, dark brown breeches, and
top boots, very white in colour, or of a very dark mahogany,

according to his taste. The hunting farmer of the old school
generally rides in a chimney-pot hat; but, in this particular,

the younger brethren of the plough are leaving their old habits,
and running into caps, net hats, and other innovations which, I

own, are somewhat distasteful to me. And there is, too, the
ostentatious farmer, who rides in scarlet, signifying thereby

that he subscribes his ten or fifteen guineas to the hunt fund.
But here, in this paper, it is not of him I speak. He is a man

who is so much less the farmer, in that he is the more an
ordinary man of the ordinary world. The farmer whom we have now

before us shall wear the old black coat, and the old black hat,
and the white top boots, rather daubed in their whiteness; and

he shall be the genuine farmer of the old school.
My friend is generally a modest man in the field, seldom much

given to talking unless he be first addressed; and then he
prefers that you shall take upon yourself the chief burden of the

conversation. But on certain hunting subjects he has his opinion,
indeed, a very strong opinion, and if you can drive him from

that, your eloquence must be very great. He is very urgent about
special coverts, and even as to special foxes; and you will often

find smouldering in his bosom, if you dive deep enough to search
for it, a half-smothered fire of indignation against the master

because the country has, according to our friend's views, been
drawn amiss. In such matters the farmer is generally right; but

he is slow to communicate his ideas, and does not recognize the
fact that other men have not the same opportunities for

observation which belong to him. A master, however, who understands
his business will generally consult a farmer; and he

will seldom, I think, or perhaps never, consult any one else.
Always shake hands with your friend the farmer. It puts him at

his ease with you, and he will tell you more willingly after that
ceremony what are his ideas about the wind, and what may be

expected of the day. His day's hunting is to him a solemn thing,
and he gives to it all his serious thought. If any man can

predicate anything of the run of a fox, it is the farmer.
I had almost said that if any one knew anything of scent, it is

the farmer; but of scent I believe that not even the farmer knows
anything. But he knows very much as to the lie of the country,

and should my gentle reader by chance have taken a glass or two
of wine above ordinary over night, the effect of which will

possibly be a temporary distaste to straight riding, no one's
knowledge as to the line of the lanes is so serviceable as that

of the farmer.
As to riding, there is the ambitious farmer and the unambitious

farmer; the farmer who rides hard, that is, ostensibly hard, and
the farmer who is simply content to know where the hounds are,