The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-08-29
BRITISH SPORT FOR YANKEES
OUR MEN oNTHE GROUSE MooRS

Long Purse Required to shoot Your
 Own Game in EngIand--Good shots
 in Demand,
 Americans who have gone to Great Britain for the shooting season send word that the sport is expected to be above the average, the dry spring and early summer having greatly favored the matching and raising of the young birds in the preserves and on the nloors. The shooting was poor last year-the worst since 1895. The advance condi- tions were the same in both bad sea- sons, an unusually heavy winter being followed by freshets and protracted rains the spring, so that the birds were drowned while matching or else the young were killed off by the wet. The opposite conditions have prevailed this year. It is becoming quite the usual thing among American devotees of live bird shooting to take a run across the Atlantic to get 8 share of the English sport with the grouse, partridge or pheasant, and to join in the country gayeties ushered in by the shooting. The signal was the start of the grouse shooting on August 12, and the birds will be fair game until December 10, ex- cept in Devon, Somerset and the New Forest, where the opening is oil Sep tember l. The legal British definition of game includes also woodcock, snipe, landrail, rabbit, and deer, water fowl coming under different statute.
 Though the coverts are teeming with birds and ground game, to enjoy the sport the American abroad who is not desirous of risking his life as a poach- CT must occupy the land he shoots over or bethe guest of a country estate or shooting box. An American who is known to be clever anr reliable shot, and Is otherwise presentable, Is always in demand on the opening days with the grouse partridge or pheasants, for there is a special rivalry between the hosts of the big estates as to the aggregate kill per gun they may report from their preserves But every American in Brit ain at this season of the year is sure to get his share of shooting if he visits at all in the country. There Is a great difference between knocking over few partridge or hare among the stubbles thuogh, and taking a gun on a crack preserve or famous moor. To enjoy the sport independent of invitations and in the patrician way cherished by succeeding generations of sportsmen, the American has but to lease shoot ing. This is the ideal way to enjoy a holiday with the gun and there Is no lack of places to choose from. Such shootings are advertised for sale in the newspapers and an army of real estate brokers stand ready to complete the details.
 There is one detail about which the American must look sharp. While use for ong period may give tite to a right of way, it was settled law that no length of use will give a title to sport in any form over land. Quarrels often arise abroad, and in this coun- try, too, when an owner after a long spell of neglect again asserts the con- trol over the shooting or fishing, so the tenant must see to it that he is not ldWSulbs Juu6AA6 HUH bAAS space given to such disagreemtns in the sporting journals abroad some grantors of shootings follow closely on David Harums principle of horse tradlng-"A fellow may be straighter'n string in ev'rythin' else, an never tell the truth that is, the hull truth-about hoss." There is no real estate broker here who makes speciality of dealing in shooting rights, but London is filled with them, and the transactions are regular part of the country lease and sales business. There may be an openig here for a New York broker.
 Americas usually look up what they want in the advertising columns of the recognized sporting weeklies, which leads them to a real estate broker if they did not go to one in the first place. Rentals depend on what is offered. There are always places on the market at from eighty pounds to as many thou sands a season. The advertising de- scriptions are written in alanguage of eulogy called in England "real estat- ese," but the many cuts and the crowd- ed columns show how great is the de- mand for shooting places. An Ameri- can may always pick and choose from fifty properties at his price. Often the shooting is let independent of the dwelling, the sporting tenants being { put up in a shooting box or at the gamekeepers lodge, often putting up with rough quarters of the nakeshift order for the sake of the grouse.
 ! As a sample of what is offered to
 Americans, in one of the sporting jour-
 nals of the latest batch from England
 there is. an attractive cut and adver-
 tisement of an estate offered for the f shooting season, within two hours of London. containing nearly 1000 acres of mixed shooting" There is mansion included which has twenty guest
 rooms and large establishment for lservants." The place is close to two oi
 the famous fox hunts, and, to quote from the announcement, "the mansion | is fine specimen of the domestic Tu-