VII. THE MASTER'S LAND CONSERVATION POLICY

The Master's of the Hillsboro Hounds want to preserve the Cornersville, Tennessee area as a place for enjoying our sport forever. This is a lofty goal and can only be obtained by having all of its members understand the fact that big pieces of raw land are very scarce and need to be preserved.

Since its founding in 1932, the Hillsboro Hounds has hunted in the following areas:

Leipers Fork, TN

Brentwood, TN 14

Wartrace, TN

Cornersville, TN

Panorama Country (Back to Leipers Fork)

Fayetteville (Cold Water), TN

All are now unusable for hunting . . . except currently we are in the Cornersville territory. The problem is that as land prices increase, there is increased pressure to keep dividing the land into increasingly smaller tracts. If this happens in our current territory, we will have to move again.

The Masters of the Hillsboro Hounds want to educate the subscribers regarding ways to preserve the "Fox Hunting Way of Life" for future generations in our current Cornersville location.

Our Cornersville History began in 1962 under the auspices of Robert Harwell, Sr. For the last 45 years, the Hillsboro Hounds has successfully been hunting the Cornersville country. Our relationships with neighboring landowners and farmers have been carefully nurtured using reciprocal hunting agreements and being very careful and mindful of our neighbors property as we cross.

Our first and most important educational points are

a. Be nice to all neighbors

b. Allow fellow landowners to hunt your property

c. Carefully follow the rules of our sport so as to keep all landowners happy and willing to let us hunt their land.

We are currently blessed to have many of our members as landowners. This is good as we are all like minded when it comes to Fox Hunting. We want to encourage our members to buy land in the Cornersville area. If it makes sense for the landowners to do so, the Masters would encourage them to put their land in a conservation easement such as the Land Trust for Tennessee. This is how we can protect our territory for forever.

The Masters will form a Land Conservation committee whose sole purpose is to facilitate conservation of property in the Cornersville / Lynnville area.

Purpose: To facilitate the Conservation of property in the Lynnville / Cornersville area as a place to enjoy the sport of fox hunting for forever.

We work hard to encourage land ownership by members of the Hillsboro Hounds and other like minded conservationists. We will be a group that tracks land availability in the Hunt‟s registered area and tries to match it to the members wants and desires.

We will attempt to keep large pieces of land, over 100 acres, together by fostering the idea of co-operative ownership. The land would be kept together as a large tract. The committee would facilitate a group of potential owners to buy it. They would agree in advance as to placement in a conservation easement, and good Hunt practices regarding fencing, egress and ingress.

There will be times that the committee may form an independent for profit LLC, made up of like minded buyers to purchase land. This could be a short term or long term play.

The Land Conservation Committee is not intended to: 15

A. Control the price of land – we believe the market does that.

B. We do not intend to compete with professionals in the business of buying, selling or developing real estate. We want to help them find the correct buyers. These could be from the Hillsboro Hounds membership or perhaps from other conservation minded groups. We will endeavor to aid the marketing of properties to the right people with the goal of perpetuating the conservation area for Fox Hunting.

We want our members to do what they can to keep tracts of land relatively large. Our goal is to try not to get tracts less than 100 acres. When the land keeps dividing, the hunt has to cross more jumps & gates and before you know it, the sport has lost its speed. We want to educate our members about fencing, coops, and gates. The fewer the fences, the better the sport.

Thoughts on "Fencing"

Our overall intention is to keep big tracts of land together with as few fences as possible.

1. Perimeter Fences – Agricultural in nature with sufficient gaps, crossings, and gates are good.

2. Interior cross fences are discouraged.

3. Paddocks with a 36' (minimum) clearance area all around are ideal, preferably less than 10 acres in size . . . see figure 1

Make all jumps and riding gates on level ground and as safe as possible. We want to keep them secure for our neighbor's livestock and well maintained. Please report any fencing problems to a Joint Master as soon as you can.

Trail maintenance is a safety issue and important to our sport. Please consult the Huntsman or Joint Masters as you are designing new trails. Property perimeter trails are usually a good idea and helpful to the huntsmen.