UPLAND SHOOTING. 
179 
if some half-dozen or eight farmers, whose land I know, would 
resolutely put an end to all shooting on their premises, they 
could readily let the right of shooting to an association of gen¬ 
tlemen, at a price which would put a hundred dollars annually 
into each of their pockets. 
I could find the gentlemen who would give it, and be but too 
glad of the opportunity; and who, looking forward to enjoy¬ 
ment of the same sport in future years, would neither wantonly 
annihilate the stock, nor do the mischief to the grass crops, and 
fences, which continually results from the incursions of the 
loafers and vagabonds, who compose the great bulk of rural 
sportsmen. I really should greatly rejoice at seeing something 
of this sort attempted. Its effect would be most beneficial on 
the preservation of game generally throughout the United 
States. 
At the beginning of the Woodcock season, to revert to things 
as they now are, it is an easy matter to find birds, if you are 
in a good country; and in truth, except in the immediate 
vicinity of the large cities, there is no difficulty in finding 
broods enough to amuse a few leisure hours ; although it is 
daily becoming more and more questionable whether it is 
worth the while of dwellers in the Atlantic cities, to keep dogs 
for the purpose of Cock-shooting, and to make excursions some 
fifty or sixty miles inland for sport during the season. A due 
regard to truth compels me to say that such excursions have 
ceased to be what they were, “ consule Planco,” when General 
Jackson was first President; yet farther inland there are 
doubtless still places to be found abounding with the tribe of 
Scolopax; although from the “Big Piece,” and the “Little 
Piece,” from Chatham and the “ Drowned Lands,” the glory 
of his house has, for the most part, departed. 
In July, then, there is ordinarily but little skill to be dis¬ 
played in the mere act of finding the birds, for there is nothing 
to be done but to beat the ground carefully, thoroughly and 
slowly, wherever there is water and covert. Unless the brood 
of the season has been annihilated already, or the ground go 
