SUPERVISION OF GAMEKEEPERS 329 



in other ways. Let me give an instance which 

 came to my own knowledge, and which I beHeve 

 is far from uncommon. A tenant farmer had a 

 litter of cubs in a small covert on his farm, of 

 which, being a hunting man, he was justly proud, 

 and told the Hunt Secretary of the fact. His 

 landlord let the shooting, and the covert was always 

 drawn blank. Can anything discourage the tenant 

 farmer from preserving foxes more than this ? We 

 are told that owing to agricultural depression the 

 proportion of tenant farmers who can afford to 

 ride to hounds is less than it was even a decade 

 ago, and that since they cannot enjoy the sport 

 they do not preserve foxes. The tenant farmer, 

 however, tells a very different tale, and says that 

 he is blamed for the faults of the non-residential 

 shooting-tenant and his keeper. 



It is to be feared that the fashion of letting shoot- 

 ing to non-residential tenants and syndicates of non- 

 residential tenants has come to stay with us. There 

 are not many fine old English gentlemen who live on 

 their own estates now, and every year sees the number 

 decreasing. In olden days the tenant farmer and the 

 keeper rubbed along together smoothly enough, and 

 even petty disagreements were rare, since they both 

 had a mutual respect for the judgment of the land- 

 owner. Now the gamekeeper can snap his fingers at 

 the landowner with the expression, " He's not my 

 master ! " The result, unfortunately, is that there is 

 often bad blood between the farmer and the keeper. 



