164 BREAKING A BIRD DOG 
It is true that the shooting privilege on a three- 
hundred-acre tract is not worth a big sum of money, 
but in these days, when the man of the soil must 
scratch and dig everywhere in order to make both 
ends meet, any income from the farm, however 
small, is worth while looking after. 
In some sections of the South, where quail are 
plentiful, land rents to shooters at about ten cents an 
acre for the shooting season. As this is very short— 
about one month in some states—the land owner 
with a three-hundred-acre tract gets thirty dollars a 
month for allowing sportsmen to tramp over his 
ground. In point of fact, the land owner is better 
off where the shooting privilege is in the hands of 
some known person than he would be if any one so 
disposed would hunt on his grounds. Instead of 
warning off the crowd by putting up trespass signs 
and chasing people off his grounds who would ignore 
his signs, this disagreeable job is put on the man 
who rents the ground. If he wants some one to 
keep off trespassers during the shooting season he 
must pay for the service. 
Farmers who forbid shooting on their lands do 
not like to interfere with the neighborhood boys if 
they happen to hunt on their land, nor do they feel 
like objecting if these boys bring with them a few 
harum-scarum chaps from town. When he has 
rented the ground he can tell his friends with good 
