t even if only once fired out of, even if you have
to clean it yourself. After cleaning with soap rubbed on the tow in warm,
or better, cold water, without the soap, if not over dirty, remove the
tow, put on clean, and pump out remaining dirt in clean warm water,
rinsing out the third time in other clean warm water. Invert the barrels,
muzzle downwards, while you refix your dry tow on the rod. Work them out
successively with several changes of tow, till they burn again. Drop a few
drops of animal oil--refined by putting shot into the bottle; neat's foot
oil is best for this--on to the tow, and rub out the inside of barrels
with it well. Wipe the outside with oil rag, cleaning around the nipples
with a hard brush and a stick; ditto hammers and the steel furniture. Use
boiled oil to rub off the stock, but it must be well rubbed in. Before
using next day, rub over every part with a clean dry rag. Nothing is more
disgusting than an oily gun, and yet nothing is more requisite than to
keep it so when out of use. In receipts you will find a composition to
prevent water penetrating to the locks, which ought to be as seldom
removed as possible. I shall not tell you how to do this, for if you do
know the how, where is the necessity, and if you don't, in all probability
you would break a scear or mainspring in the attempt, as I did, when first
I essayed, and after that had to get the gamekeeper to put it together. So
your best plan in this latter case is to watch the method for a time or
two, when you will know as much of the matter as I do.

The finest barrels are rusted the most easily, and suffer the more
detriment by rusting. Of course the fouler the gun the greater the evil
that arises from its being left foul. In hot weather, barrels suffer
infinitely more than in cold; and in wet, than in dry. When dampness and
heat are combined, the mischief is yet augmented; and, probably, the worst
conditions that can be supposed are when, to dampness and heat, a salt
atmosphere is superadded.

No man who owns a fine gun, which he values, ought ever to put it aside
after use without cleaning, even if he have fired but a single shot.
Again, every man who loves his gun, should make it a point to clean it
with his own hands. It may do in Europe, where one has a game-keeper at
his elbow who knows how to clean a gun better than he does himself, and
who takes as much pride in having it clean as he. Use strong and clean
shooting powders. Don't