Another correspondent calls my attention to the fact that, in Virginia, hunting is not merely the sport of the rich, but that the farmers are enthusiastic members of the field—sometimes at the expense of their cattle and crops. He relates the following story illustrative of the point of view of the sporting Virginia farmer:
"A man from the Department of Agriculture came down into our section to look over farms and give advice to farmers. He went to see one farmer in my county and found that he had absolutely nothing growing, and that his livestock consisted of three hunters and thirty-two couples of hounds. The agricultural expert was scandalized. He told the farmer he ought to begin at once to raise hogs. 'You can feed them what you feed the dogs,' he said, 'and have good meat for your family aside from what you sell.'
"After hearing his visitor out, the farmer looked off across the country and spat ruminatively.
"'I ain't never seen no hawg that could catch a fox,' he said, and with that turned and went into the barn, evidently regarding the matter as closed. Clearly he did not share the view of the Irishman who dismissed fox hunting with the remark that a fox was 'damned hard to catch and no good when you got him.'"
CHAPTER XVII
"A CERTAIN PARTY"
Kind are her answers,
But her performance keeps no day;
Breaks time, as dancers
From their own music when they stray.
Lost is our freedom
When we submit to women so:
Why do we need 'em
When, in their best, they work our woe?
—Thomas Campion.