ding him
on the best and strongest food. However, for general purposes, three brace
of dogs are sufficient, and, when not often used, two are plenty; but no
one ought ever to have less than two brace. It may be managed by always
going out with a friend, he keeping one brace, you the other; he shooting
to your dogs, you to his. For my part, give me three brace of my own, and
let those be the best shaped, strongest, best bred, and best workers there
can be. That is my weakness, and to achieve this I yearly sink a
sufficient number of dollars to keep a poor man. But all this is
digressing most fearfully from the nursery of young pointers and setters.

BITCH IN USE.

By receipt on a subsequent page, you will see how your bitch is to be
brought into use. We will suppose her well formed and well bred. If
faultless, put her to a dog nearly equal, if you cannot get one equal.
Save the dog pups which will take after the dam. It is well understood
that by breeding from young bitches you have faster and higher rangers;
and this also reminds me to say that no bitch ought to be bred from till
she is full grown, that is to say, till she is two years old. Many people
breed at twelve months, but it is wrong. The bitch is not full grown, and,
consequently, the puppies are poor, weak, and miserable. If the bitch has
faults, find a dog of the same appearance as her, while he excels in those
points she is deficient in. The bitches are partakers of his qualities.
Are you short of bone, nose, size, form, temper, look for the excess of
these. The cross, or, at all events, the next remove from it, will be
just as you wish. Any peculiarity may be made inherent in a breed by
sedulously cultivating that peculiarity. Avoid above all things breeding
in and in brother and sister, mother and son, father and daughter--all
bad, but the first far worse than either of the others, since the blood of
each is the same. The other two are only half so. To perfect form should
be added high ranging qualities, high courage, great docility, keen nose,
and great endurance. That is the acme of breeding. A few judicious crosses
will enable you to acquire it for your kennel. To the inattention and
carelessness of sportsmen to these points are to be attributed the
innumerable curs we nowadays see in comparison to well bred dogs. Anything
that will find a bird will do. Far otherwise, to my mind. "Nothing is
worth doing at all if it is not to be well done," and