nciple. You know your own
circumstances, and you must yourself determine what time you choose to
devote to them; and, as a consequence, the degree of excellence to which
you aspire. I can only assure you of my firm conviction, that no other
means will enable you to gain your object so quickly, and I speak with a
confidence derived from long experience in many parts of the world, on a
subject that was, for several years, my great hobby.[2]

3. Every writer is presumed to take some interest in his reader; I
therefore feel privileged to address you as a friend, and will commence my
lecture by strongly recommending, that, if your occupations will allow it,
you take earnestly and heartily to educating your dogs yourself. If you
possess temper and some judgment, and will implicitly attend to my advice,
I will go bail for your success, and, much as you may now love shooting,
you will then like it infinitely more. Try the plan I recommend, and I
will guarantee that the Pointer or Setter Pup which I will, for example
sake, suppose to be now in your kennel, shall be a better dog by the end
of next season--I mean a more killing dog--than probably any you ever yet
shot over.

4. Possibly you will urge, that you are unable to spare the time which I
consider necessary for giving him a high education--brief as that time is,
compared with the many, many months wasted in the tedious methods usually
employed--and that you must, perforce, content yourself with humbler
qualifications. Be it so, I can only condole with you, for in your case
this may be partly true; mind, I only say _partly_ true. But how a man of
property, who keeps a regular gamekeeper, can be satisfied with the
disorderly, disobedient troop to which he often shoots, I cannot
understand. Where the gamekeeper is permitted to accompany his master in
the field, and hunt the dogs himself, there can be no valid excuse for the
deficiency in their education. The deficiency must arise either from the
incapacity, or from the idleness of the keeper.

5. Unlike most other arts, dog-breaking does not require much experience;
but such a knowledge of dogs, as will enable you to discriminate between
their different tempers and dispositions, I had almost said
characters--and they vary greatly--is very advantageous. Some require
constant encouragement; some you must never beat; whilst, to gain the
required ascendancy over others, the whip must be occasionally employed.
Nor is it necessar