PLANNING BIG SHOOTS 227 



owing to injury, the growth is retarded of those 

 layers of cork which form to assist the buds in dis- 

 lodging the worn-out leaves. On the sides of rides 

 trimmed annually the leaves form quite a screen in 

 late autumn to which one sportsman put down 

 his many misses at rabbits, and ordered his keepers 

 to walk along every ride and pick off all the leaves 

 that remained. The shoots of underwood that has 

 been cut always grow more luxuriantly in a hot, 

 dry summer than in a rainy one ; every copse-worker 

 will tell you this is the case, though we have not come 

 across one who could solve the riddle. 



In early November many keepers are putting the 

 perfecting-touches to plans that have been maturing 



all through the year. From the second 

 Planning d a y o f February the keeper whose work is 

 Shoots not mer ely work, but the most absorbing 



interest the world has to offer, has been 

 weighing continuously a thousand details studying 

 each in its relation to others scheming to arrange 

 all so that in combination they shall bring the best 

 possible results when the big days of the shooting 

 season come to pass. Few shooting men realise the 

 immense importance of apparently trivial details. 

 Let a single one such as the exact placing of a 

 " stop " be forgotten or disregarded, and the whole 

 of a day's sport by modern methods may be ruined. 

 Many good beats, many good days, have been brought 



