] ] Perhaps it wasn't growing season when Edmund teaches Mary to ride? Maybe it was after the harvest? (I don't recall, obviously!)

] Grass actually grows year-round in England....and horses and cows can be left out year-round becase of this. Grass doesn't actually stop growing until the daytime maximum drops below 6ºC, which only happens for one or two days in January and February. So there is never a time when grass is out of growing season. Haymaking is usually May or June- though a farmer friend of mine says that its'a delicate balance between quantity and nutritional level, and sunshine/rain, etc.

] ] Webster:

] Hmm.......this is getting close to water-meadow- i.e. land flooded in winter to provide a warmer environment for the hay crop to grow. Such meadows are full of drainage ditches at any season of the year and anyone riding a horse in that risks an equine broken leg- no joke at all! Connstable painted a lovely picture called something like "View of the river near Salisbury" or "View of the meadows near Salisbury" which shows these kinds of meadows in their winter flood.

] I agree, it's a puzzle. JA doesn't help, by declaring in her letters that she really isn't much interested in her brother's farming busines.....