GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 187 



inexplicable. Holkham, Elvedon, Merton, and Six- 

 Mile Bottom could not have had their records lowered 

 without wholesale buying of eggs and artificial rearing 

 of birds. Agriculture had doubtless been sacrificed, 

 and nets, wire, kites, and other illegitimate means 

 been used galore to produce such a result in a second- 

 class game county. The thing could not have been 

 done by fair shooting in the open fields. 



All these things were said at the time ; yet none 

 of them were true, and the marvellous record made 

 at The Grange in 1887, of which fuller particulars will 

 be found on a later page, 1 was achieved under the 

 fairest possible conditions, and on ordinary agricultural 

 land producing a more than average rent to its owner. 

 What, then, was the explanation ? And how is it 

 that the same estate has, during the past three years, 

 again proved itself capable of producing the two 

 biggest weeks' partridge-driving in England ? 



The answer is, undoubtedly, good keepering, good 

 management, and a good understanding all round 

 between owner, keepers, farmers, and labourers. 



It would be neither politic nor convincing, in a 

 work intended to appeal to all classes of sporting 

 readers, to extol unduly a particular place or keeper, 



1 See p. 227. 



