SHOOTING 87 



cation of cordial good feeling that showed that, Act or 

 no Act, the sport of his old friend and landlord — a 

 relation enduring two generations of the respective 

 families without a break in the intimacy — should 

 suffer from no act of his old tenant. There is, even 

 in these straitened times, many and many a similar 

 instance to be named. No longer ago than October 

 1893 I saw killed in three days' partridge-shooting 

 very close upon 300 hares, shot in the turnips alone, 

 without touching a single covert. Here again most 

 cordial relations exist, and have existed for generations, 

 between landlord and tenant, and every consideration 

 is paid by each party to the interests of the other. 



But when hard times arrive and, instead of being 

 able to maintain his shooting at the proper level, a 

 sporting rent becomes an important consideration to 

 the landowner, a different condition of affairs arises. 

 A stranger, employing strange keepers, finds it hard to 

 interest the farmers in his behalf. He has no control 

 over their actions as regards ground game, however 

 high may be the rent he has disbursed ; and in but 

 too many cases, after a few years of bickering and dis- 

 content, the shooting is thrown back upon its owaier's 

 hands. He finds it sadly impaired if he wishes to 

 retain it himself, and much reduced in money value 

 if he is still compelled to place it on the market. In 



