Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1903-02-09
FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND
Decline of an OId-Time Sport in Fa-
Vor Of Pheasant Preserving.


Fox hunting in England is no long
eF on the firm footing it held 25 years
ago. Ever since the middle Of last the
century, when as a sport it reached
| It's night it has been declining. The
railways are partly responsible fol
this. For one thing, by opening I'D
new parts of the country and encour-
aging building, they have greatly de-
creased the hunting area At the
same time, travelling now being both
cheap and quick, they have doubled
the number Of men who hunt. The
heIds are too large, and therefor,
more destructive, and therefore more
expensive, than they used to be.
Moreover, the ever increasing agr1-
cultural depression, the disappear
ance OF the moderate-sized farmer,
VINO was the backbone of the old
hunC' and the appearance in his place
elther OF the absentee tenant who
preserves game Or of the smaIl-hold-
lngs man who is too poor to hunt
himself, have led to rather strained
relatlons between the farmer and the
M f. H. The barbarous wiring OF
hedges, summonses for trespass ana
refusal to permit hunting over GER
tain helds, are symptoms of this.
Formerly the farmer knew all the
members of the hunt personally and
joined in the sport himself Nova
days the M. F. H. himself is hardly
acquainted with more than 10 Del
cent. of his field. Men run down
from town for a few DAVIS hunting
pay no subscription and make no do
nation toward the maintenance of the
pack, and being for the most part
toWnsmen and ignorant of agricu1-
lure, do an enormous amount of dam
age. The presence of this class is a
thOrny problem to the M. F. H. and
constant irritation to the farmer.
or course, all damage done is paid
FOR literally and promptly. If
FARMER loses a chicken or finds a
dead lamb Or broken fence or some
trampled wheat, in goes his bill to
the M. Fl. F. The hunt, moreover,
pays him to take down his wire Oh,
November 1, and puts it up again at
its own expense when the season
closes. Everything is done to keep
him in good humor and on the whole
with success, for though the old re-
lations have disappeared, the average
farmer is still a sportsman at heart.
and If his outlook were only a little
wider, would recognize that the con-
TinTQnnn Of
purchasing of forage and horses it in
wolves and all the employment il
gives to the neighborhood, is a side
issue of no small Importance to him
self
The real enemy of the fox-hunter is
not the farmer, but the game preserv-
er 1t is he who encrOaches on the
sport and threatens in the long run
to sacrifice it to the pheasant. The
conditions of pheasant shooting have
been revolutionized within the last 20
years. In the eighties it would have
been thought worse than unsports-
manlike had six or eight guns killed
| 700 Or 500 pheasants in a single day.
But now the tattue is almost the sole
diversion, and the man who is con-
tent to potter behind a spaniel or a
pointer and plaster half a dozen cock
pheasants as they flop up has all bu,
vanished. A couple of ''big shoots
is the present-day ideal. Moreover IL
is an ideal that is peculiarly attrac-
tive to the successful city man who
has made his pile, knows nothing OF
hunting and is too old to learn, but
who likes to give his friends a weeks
sport at his country place. Foxes
and pheasants go i'll together, and the
ordinary keeper is a vulpicide by in
stinct and conviction. That is one
ground Of complaint. Another is that
the game preserver, not wishing to
have his birds disturbed and the big
shoot spoiled, often forbids his CO.
verts to he drawn till Christmas,
when the hunting season is half over.
The consequence is either that the
hunting area is still more circum-
scribed of that the M. F. H. has to
rent cOverts on his own account to
prevent them from falling into the
hands of the game preserver. Thai
adds enormously to the expense
which is already mounting up at to
prodigious rate. Between the rail
ways, the farmer and the pheasant
one of the grandest of all English
sports seems likely to be squeezed
out of existence.-New York CONNER
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