Letters to the Editor
FOX-HUNTING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I have not seen all the letters written on this subject, but I note little is said on the economic aspect of the subject in this week's issue.
For many years I farmed extensively and also somewhat intensively ; in my young days I was well saturated with the usual dicta on " sport." I shot a little and had much sympathy with fox-hunting, especially as I was extremely fond of horses, and spent much of my time in the saddle, which I could do, and also attend to my various businesses. I did not hunt ; I could not afford the time.
My experiences of farming and especially as a large poultry farmer, which I still am, cured me of all sympathy with fox- hunting. I found it intolerable to submit to the losses involved by hounds continually passing over my land, both to the crops, to my breeding flock of ewes, and, above all, to the repression of my poultry undertaking by both the destruction of the stock and the labour involved in protecting them from the ravages of foxes. Ultimately I destroyed all the foxes I could, and they were many, and I also warned both local packs of hounds off my land. I had to. enforce this warning legally before it was effective. Rather to my surprise I found I had the secret sympathy of my farmer neighbours.
Agriculture is now suffering from much adversity ; for physical, economic, and psychological reasons we must all hope it will survive, but nothing is surer than the fact that if agriculture in this country ever emulates the intensive forms of agriculture practised in France, Belgium, or Denmark, fox-hunting must go. Notwithstanding the general gloom in which arable land farming is encircled, certain branches "have brighter prospects, and this is particularly the case with poultry culture. This branch is quite profitable as I can prove and testify, but I would not farm poultry on large lines in a fox-ridden country. It is not a case of compensa- tion—foxes and fox-hunting spell repression.
Your other correspondents have written on the ethical side; they have my sympathy. I can look back now on an ill-spent youth when I sympathized with the killers. Killing has no attractions for me now, whether it is done in the name of sport or otherwise. There may come a time when mankind will evolve to a plane when it will look back with disgust to the blood-sports of its forefathers, let us hope.—I am,
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