160 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
keepers are incapable of breaking or handling a dog, 
you must try to give them an example of how it 
should be done, and they will quickly see the advan- 
tage of the knowledge, and try to acquire it for them- 
selves. It is surely possible on any estate to reserve 
outlying portions—they need not be large—which may 
be devoted to the all-important department of break- 
ing and training your dogs. 
Shooting must be done on this ground for the 
benefit of the dogs and their trainers alone, but no 
great amount of birds need be killed, and it strikes 
me that to take part on off days in this wild shooting 
and dog-breaking would be a pleasant change for any 
owner or tenant of a good sporting property. More 
than this, it would probably pay him, for his retrievers 
would command high prices in the market, and the 
numbers of birds retrieved from loss and lingering 
death would go some way in value towards the expense 
of the department. The dog-breaker, while training 
his dogs, would bring up and train a boy apprentice, 
who would, besides doing the dirty work of the kennel, 
and looking after the dogs in his chief’s necessary 
absences, soon be capable of supplementing his efforts 
in the field. 
You are walking, say, four guns in a line, and to 
each gun there is a keeper and a retriever. Asa rule, 
