HISTORICAL 79 



so far from her high estate in the sporting 

 world since those halcyon days. I have 

 often seen this instanced as the results of 

 bad management and slackness in pre- 

 serving, but this has little to do with the 

 matter. Slackness and want of method 

 there may be, but in the disuse of the 

 plough lies our real trouble. Formerly 

 every available acre was cultivated, but 

 now we have three or four grass fields to 

 one that is under crop. Where this is 

 the case, no human skill can produce a 

 big stock of partridges, as stocks are 

 reckoned nowadays. 



We can still show good sport, drives 

 from some turnip- field bordering on the 

 moorland, where you shall have fair chance 

 of killing every form of game, from a 

 blackcock to a snipe, at the one stand, 

 but for partridges alone we can never 

 again hope to compete with Norfolk on 

 equal terms, nor indeed with neighbours 

 on our own East coast, where probably 

 only one field in four is pasture. 



