CHAPTER L. SENDING GAME TO 

 MARKET. 



M 



OST preserves are maintained, with a view to being 

 self-supporting, by means of sending surplus game 

 to market. As to the price it realises, a good deal depends 

 upon the way it is packed and delivered, and it is very 

 important that packing and similar matters should be care- 

 fully attended to. Everyone would sooner give a shilling 

 or so more for a nice, clean pheasant, than for one 

 bedraggled with clotted blood and of uneven feather, and 

 when this shilling is lost on several thousand birds every 

 season the loss becomes material. 



When packing, two ends must be held in view viz., first, 

 to prevent the package from being opened and its contents 

 appropriated in transit, and next, to insure clean and neat 

 delivery of the game. For feathered game, boxes are for 

 both purposes nearly a sine qua non, and much to be pre- 

 ferred to hampers, although hampers admit of birds being 

 longer on the way. For small lots of game from two to ten 

 brace the safest kind of box is one in which the sides 

 are nailed on to the ends, as shown on the next page. 



