turing towns of importance in England, particularly in the northern and midland districts, Chambers of Commerce are to be found. The meetings are held at regular intervals, and "business" is the watchword of the members. Tariffs are discussed with commendable intelligence and zeal; no time is wasted in conversational gossip; and petitions are forwarded to Parliament with a promptitude that cannot fail to tell in the long run. To agriculturists at large, I would say, "Go and do likewise;" and "Nil Desperandum" be engraven on your hearts.

LAND TRANSFER: THE TRANSIT OF CATTLE.

The farmer's position in the country is affected by several grievances, which Chambers of Agriculture and Farmers' Clubs could help to remove. Two of them will be cited for illustration. When an industrious tenant-farmer has contrived by thrift and unflagging industry to save a few hundreds of pounds, he naturally begins to aspire to change his position from a tenant to a landowner. Shakspeare condemns ambition to be a sin, but at least this kind of ambition is a very pardonable fault, and one that even deserves encouragement. The tenant learns that a certain farm is for sale, which will suit his purpose. But when he comes to buy, he is compelled to pay a heavy price to some lawyer for making a conveyance before his title can be considered complete. This is an oppressive interference by law. A commercial man can purchase £10,000 worth of wool, iron, or any other raw material, at the extra expense of a few coppers, an invoice only being requisite; but if a tenantfarmer acquires a few acres of land costing £500, the chances are that he will have to pay a purchase-bill when he receives his deeds, amounting to £20 or £30. The time has arrived when a more simple and inexpensive, and still equally effectual method of registering the sale and purchase of land, ought to be devised and sanctioned by the Legislature. The second illustration relates to the sufferings endured by cattle in their transit by rail. Hud‹lled together in a truck, in nearly the same fashion as the unhappy

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victims of the Black Hole in Calcutta, the animals are exposed, perhaps, to a scorching sun and a perpetual torment by the flies, for twenty-four hours without cessation. Often for so long a period they remain without water, and suffer intensely from thirst. Need it be said, that the constitution of an animal is seriously injured by such treatment, and its value in the market, either for farm stock or the shambles, greatly depreciated? Railway companies ought to be forbidden to carry cattle beyond a certain distance without supplying them with water, under heavy penalties. A law to that effect, however, will be postponed for a long time, unless associations such as I have the honour of addressing move in the matter. Recent legislation is calculated to affect materially the farmer's position in the country. By the Elementary Education Act of 1870, the scholastic training of every child in England and Wales is intended to be secured. In time, the employer of agricultural labourers will experience the effects. Whenever the mental faculties of a human being are developed by culture, a higher degree of self-estimation is liable to be generated; and once our agricultural labourers begin to be so affected, they will insist on a more liberal scale of wages. Therefore, before long, farmers must expect to find this call made on them. Capital and labour have been antagonized in England for thirty years. This antagonism, which spreads like contagion, threatens to everwhelm the agricultural districts of the country.

THE USE OF IMPROVED MACHINERY:
EDUCATION.

If a demand for increased wages be made, tenant-farmers will be the first to feel it, and acutely. The immediate future promises to be favourable to such a demand, because, by the gradual opening out of the mineral resources of the Principality, the pressure in the labour market will be much relieved, and it will be proportionately less easy to obtain farm labourers; consequently they will command the terms on which they shall be hired In anticipation of this possibility, all who hear me will mentally realize the urgent

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I

T is highly desirable,” says a writer in the Daily News-and his hints are as applicable to pheasants, and indeed throughout the whole shooting seasons of the year, as they are to the plump little birds that delight to esconce themselves among the broad leaves of the Brassica genus-" that those who take part in this festival should not celebrate it with maimed rites. For this purpose a certain class of sportsmen should bear in mind that birds only are to be hit in the course of the day. Neither markers, pointers, or setters should be considered under the head of game by the fowler when a-field. The guests, and the host of the house at which a tyro visitor for the First is entertained, should be regarded as so far exempt from the chances of being slain or wounded that some care should be exercised on their behalf by persons whose guns are liable to unexpected explosions. The head of any friend or acquaintance sighted nervously on a line of fire with the covey is always in danger, although the young or the untried sportsman may not think of the fact at the time. A breechloader can perforate a common English peasant engaged to assist in the great business of the hour at any distance, from 1 up to 75 or So yards. The effect at the short range is probably instantaneous death; at the longer range, the result may be simple blinding for life, according to circumstances over which

the sucking or 'prentice fowler has no control. Occasionally, a marker struck at 80 yards may escape with a mere peppering, which causes him to execute a most diverting pas seul. It might be judicious or charitable for the inexperienced friend to whom these hints are offered, to ascertain as early as possible in the morning who are the married men in the party. To wing an old bachelor may be awkward, but to bag or cripple the father of a family is a proceeding about which there is an air of thoughtlessness and levity. Agreeable re-unions on the First have, before now, been abruptly broken up by the insertion of a small proportion of a cartridge into the leg of the squire himself, who, in an evil and smoking-room hour in town, had invited the operator-who apparently took his host's gaiters for ground game-for a week's shooting. There are few men so fond of shooting that they like to be constantly obliged to look into the barrels of their neighbour's gun. This ought to be kept in mind by the neophyte, who, from the mode in which he carries his weapon, appears to think that whoever comes near him is anxious to satisfy himself by personal inspection as to the exact bore of the loaded piece. Nor is there anything gained, when following your friends over a hedge, by turning the gun on at full cock towards the back buttons of their coats. When jumping from the hedge your

self, or sliding down it, there is no objectwith which wild poultry can be associated, at least in coming on your feet with your breech-loader directed with a jerk upon the group of featherless bipeds who are waiting for you to join them.

A partridge to our young sportsman appears to explode into little bits when first flushed, or to resolve itself into a Catherine Wheel, like that represented by Leech in his famous picture of Mr Briggs amongst the pheasants. The delusion, or illusion, however, has so strong an effect on the tyro, that he tries to arrest the transformation, as it were, by firing at the bird the instant it is off the ground. There could be no greater mistake as a dog often finds to his cost. It is better not to pull the trigger until the gun is brought fairly to the shoulder, and that manœuvre is inconsistent with the hysterical snap which follows on the spring of a covey from the weapon of the impatient or the excited sportsman. The latter should also remember that he has far more chances of bringing down his quarry at thirty than at ten paces. The partridge will neither burst of, his own accord, nor vanish into thin air, if permitted to go a little farther. Indeed, he generally retires in excellent order when a wild atttempt is made at him at close quarters, but by waiting until he has attained 30 or even 40 yards, there is the satisfaction of feeling that, if not missed outright, there is a prospect of his receiving an odd pellet from the charge, which will probably result in his dying in a ditch, attended in his last moments by a weasel or a hawk.

If you are placed next a good shot, contrive as often as possible to fire at the same time that he does. When the bird is allotted to him, look amiably resigned. As a general rule, reverse the spirit of the order in battle -to aim low; aim high, for several reasons. The height of a setter from the ground is not much, the human stature is also below the average level of partridge flight, so that no sportsman-like object can be well attained by sending the contents of your cartridge skimming a couple of feet over the tops of the turnips. Low firing, as understood by our

beginner, often consists of simply smashing a mangold-wurtzel a few yards off. The mangold does not count in the day's bag. High firing is comparatively a safe proceeding unless the markers are on hazardous elevations; but it is difficult to lay down any specific regulations which would ensure comparative immunity from extreme peril for these officials in places where a few of the company are enthusiastically fond of shooting, but quite unaccustomed to it.

We are almost afraid to venture upon any suggestions to old sportsmen. The veteran is ever, and properly, impatient of advice. Besides, the man who cannot hit seven partridges out of ten that he fires at on the First, is not likely to profit much by our writing. Nothing but steadiness is required for the work. The birds, if approached at a proper hour, will wait to be kicked up, and the old cock ought to be brought down like an old hat, to start with. Don't take your eye from the bird that catches it first, have at him determinedly. The instant you let drive at him, remember you have a second barrel, and that a clever practitioner should perform with the right and left as deftly as a pianist with both hands. There is very little credit, indeed, in taking a single bird out of the lot when the covey is well within range. It is quite another matter late on in October, when the birds are thin and scattered, when they are wary, and strong on the wing. On September days, also, if the weather should be bad (say wet over night and a high wind next day), partridge shooting may alter its conditions completely. Coveys deprived of the old birds as soon as possible will be found easiest of approach. We believe in "rogue" partridges-single brutes that will dart under your nose over a hedge, and with the rustle of their wings call up covey after covey in the fields which you had designed to beat. There is nothing for it, under such circumstances, but to mark down the flushed lots.

A good luncheon is generally followed by bad shooting. Hock consumed until it is resolved into hic tells for the birds and against the guns. Moderate refreshment, of course, is requisite and useful. The cigar

afterwards (one and only one) seems to cool down the excitement, perhaps naturally consequent upon the first day's campaign. Forced marches on this occasion may be also strongly condemned. To make a toil of a pleasure is often a vice of an athletic Englishman. It may be as well to leave many of the coveys untouched at the commencement of the season. There is plenty of sport to be had without the massacre of the callow innocents who are not much bigger than quails, and whose tender bodies are as easy riddled and torn as the carcase of the soft-fleshed landrail. There are few things more unsportsmanlike than putting up a partridge nursery, and when the fledglings flutter separately into the holes and corners of hedges, marching to them with a cunning old pointer, or having them poked out with a stick from their retreats. The contents of the poulterers' shops in London on the second day, always display a sad reckoning on the hooks of partlets cut off in the bloom of youth before they had time to strengthen on the soil, and were fit to be the quarry of other than chicken-butcher fowlers. There is no skill or fun in compassing the death of these infants, and their doom should not be pronounced except upon very much overstocked ground. The thinning should commence with the lusty and the ripe birds.

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A word in parting to our friend who enters turnips or stubble for the very first time. We most emphatically commend to his consideration the observations at the head of this article. He should have it impressed upon him that once the trigger is pulled it is impossible to recall the charge which goes out upon its mission at the explosion, so that every precaution should be taken antecedent to an act of dog slaughter or markercide, as the case might be. Prevention in such circumstances is decidedly better than cure, the extraction of small shot from the human frame being perhaps one of the most uncomfortable operations of surgery to which the living subject can be liable. For the rest, let the young sportsman prattle modestly, if at all, of his exploits. Let his talk not be perdrix, toujours perdrix, what time the short interval is allowed before coffee where he is entertained. His deeds should speak for themselves, let us hope not with a tragic, solemn interest, but with a reasonable assertion to a repute for prudence, if not for skill, for an amount of discretion which has ensured him at any rate from the disagreeable consciousness of having to pension a keeper on crutches for the sake of the momentary pleasure derived from firing, where driving up is allowed, indiscriminately into the brain, not of the birds, but of the beaters.

WE

E have received the following interesting notes about the harvest in South Devon from a thoroughly competent authority. He seems to be quite aware about that which he is writing, and that is more than can be said of some of the self-constituted authorities whose adumbrations we have recently listened to. He says:

The crop which has just been gathered seems likely to yield a result considerably under an average. As regards the wheat, this

was foreseen from the appearance of the fields throughout the spring and summer. The cold ungenial spring and the unusually wet summer both acted much against the wheat crop; but the main cause of the failure lay in the unfavourable condition of the land at the time of sowing the seed. It was very generally remarked by farmers at that time, that their land was in fine condition for barley, but they feared it was too light and friable for wheat. The result shewed that