138 The Dog Book 



climbing over the fence and breeding outside of the already proscribed 

 limits, the promoters met the emergency by extending the limits and so 

 -keep all the good dogs as "Llewellyns." 



To our mind the excellence of the American field dog is owing to the 

 concentration of effort in the securing a dog to suit the special requirements 

 in our field trials. Breeders have bred to the winning dogs and kept on at 

 that, and while there have been thousands bred annually not worth feeding, 

 yet out of the great number there were bound to be some good ones. 



Doctor Rowe on the Llewellyns 



Many readers who .have accepted the statements of persons no better 

 informed than themselves regarding the Llewellyns may perhaps be of 

 the opinion that we are either incorrect or prejudiced in what we have pre- 

 viously stated in the article in Country Life in America, already mentioned, 

 and also herein. We propose therefore showing upon the best authority 

 ■we can find that everything we have alleged was in 1884 made the basis of 

 Doctor Rowe's attack upon Mr. Buckell and other supporters of what 

 Doctor Rowe characterised as a speculative breed. The late Doctor Rowe 

 was for many years editor of the American Field, and his name still stands 

 on its title page as its founder, which is not quite correct, as he took over a 

 struggling paper some two or three years old and after a few years changed 

 its name to American Field. To-day it is the staunchest supporter of the 

 Llewellyn cult, and in the stud book which it publishes annually there is a 

 •section entitled Llewellyn Setters as distinguished from English Setters. 



To paraphrase a well-known proverb, when fanciers fall out we are 

 apt to hear some honest truths. At the close of the year 1883 Doctor Rowe 

 announced that he would send some setter puppies he had bred on theo- 

 retical lines to compete at the English field trials. The result was quite a 

 wordy warfare with some gentlemen he had been very friendly with in 

 the matter of supporting the field trials strain. Mr. Buckell said he was 

 not telling the truth and the Doctor claimed "he was rude and personal." 

 . . . "A contributor to Land and Water declared we had been guilty 

 of an unsportsmanlike act in trying to appropriate the puppies as American- 

 bred dogs; another declared we knew more about Kentucky widows than 

 of breeding setters, and another pronounced us to be a feather-bed sports- 

 man; our theories of breeding were declared vaporous effusions; the Turf, 



