But there is really less need of bold and skilful horsemanship than in
the otherwise less attractive and more artificial sport of fox-hunting,
or riding to hounds, in a closed and long-settled country.
Those of us who are in part of southern blood have a hereditary right
to be fond of cross-country riding; for our forefathers in Virginia,
Georgia, or the Carolinas, have for six generations followed the fox
with horse, horn, and hound. In the long-settled Northern States the
sport has been less popular, though much more so now than formerly; yet
it has always existed, here and there, and in certain places has been
followed quite steadily.
In no place in the Northeast is hunting the wild red fox put on a more
genuine and healthy basis than in the Geneseo Valley, in central New
York. There has always been fox-hunting in this valley, the farmers
having good horses and being fond of sport; but it was conducted in a
very irregular, primitive manner, until some twenty years ago Mr. Austin
Wadsworth turned his attention to it.
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