The Axe in the Coverts
One of the many thorns that pierce the keeper's side is driven home at the time of the cutting of the underwood. Once in every span of ten or twelve years this time must come. Now and again the felling of part of a covert before shooting improves matters from a sportsman's view—the beats are simplified, or are more easily commanded with the regulation number of from five to nine guns. But the keeper knows to his cost that more often than not cutting the underwood is ruination to sport. Birds and rabbits are alarmed by the sound of the woodman's chopping, and half the hares fly before the smoke of the greenwood fires. Many complications arise through wood-cutting, as when the shooting is in other than the landlord's hands. When he wishes to cut certain portions of his woods, and the cutting may interfere seriously with sport or the showing of game, unpleasantness must arise among all parties—landlord, gamekeepers, shooting men, and copse-workers. Those responsible for the shooting should find out as early as possible which parts are to be cut, and arrange in good time with the landlord to make it a condition of sale that no cutting takes place before a convenient date. When several acres of underwood are felled, and the wood is left lying in long rows called drifts, a good deal of inconvenience may arise, unless the underwood is worked up as cut down. On shooting days half the pheasants in the place may skulk in the drifts, whence it will be impossible to dislodge them by ordinary beating methods of the most energetic type. Besides, drifts provide a safe refuge for rabbits. They increase incredibly, and in the following year they will be by far too plentiful for the welfare of the young shoots that spring from the shorn stumps.