GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 195 



and climate nothing like the same amount of par- 

 tridges are to be found. 



Now here we see the advantage of a standard to 

 go by. It has been proved conclusively on a par- 

 ticular estate that a certain large number of birds can 

 be produced and a certain average maintained through 

 good and bad seasons, rising to a very high total 

 in exceptionally favourable years. Remove Lord 

 Ashburton, Marlowe, and the system, and the totals 

 would probably sink in a couple of years to those 

 of the average Hampshire estate ; whilst under the 

 new regime it would be said that it was not after all 

 a first-rate game soil -which it is not and that so 

 many brace, giving an average sort of total, was all 

 that could be expected from it. 



The same might be said of Holkham, Merton, 

 Elvedon, Londesborough, or a few more really well- 

 managed estates. In these places there is a proper 

 standard to go by, and were the stock to fall too low, 

 the owners would know, and all those in the habit of 

 shooting there would know, that there was something 

 wrong. 



But if the owner of a property, large or small, 

 does not know, and has never taken any pains to test, 

 in the ways I have described, what amount of stock 

 can be produced on the ground, what can he expect ? 



o 2 



