GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 195 
and climate nothing like the same amount of par- 
tridges are to be found. 
Now here we see the advantage of a standard to 
go by. It has been proved conclusively on a par- 
ticular estate that a certain large number of birds can 
be produced and a certain average maintained through 
good and bad seasons, rising to a very high total 
in exceptionally favourable years. Remove Lord 
Ashburton, Marlowe, and the system, and the totals 
would probably sink in a couple of years to those 
of the average Hampshire estate ; whilst under the 
new végime it would be said that it was not after all 
a first-rate game soil—which it is not—and that so 
many brace, giving an average sort of total, was all 
that could be expected from it. 
The same might be said of Holkham, Merton, 
Elvedon, Londesborough, or a few more really well- 
managed estates. In these places there is a proper 
standard to go by, and were the stock to fall too low, 
the owners would know, and all those in the habit of 
shooting there would know, that there was something 
wrong. 
But if the owner of a property, large or small, 
does not know, and has never taken any pains to test, 
in the ways I have described, what amount of stock 
can be produced on the ground, what can he expect ? 
02 
