252 THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FOOD OF 



value. The influence of climate as affected by elevation; the 

 amount of moisture ; the amount of sunlight and heat available 

 particularly in winter, (depending on how the hill ranges run) ; 

 exposure to prevailing winds ; and the liability to death of stock 

 on some grounds — particularly when subjected to certain sudden 

 changes of weather — affect the value of land to a greater degree 

 than is supposed by the general public. 



In reviewing the valuable hill plants, we begin with common 

 heather, Erica (Calhma) vulgaris, because it covers a greater 

 extent of surface than any other, and is perhaps best known to 

 all classes. To the general public, especially tourists, it is 

 interesting on account of the lovely purple its flowers lend to 

 the hillsides in August and September. To the sportsman it is 

 known as that part of the food of grouse and black game which 

 gives the wild flavour to their flesh, and as the shelter in which 

 these may cower in the early part of the season until within 

 ranoe of the o-un. With the farmers' interests we have more to 

 do. Sheep are very fond of the young and tender shoots, and 

 Wxll eat them at all times of the year, more or less vigorously, 

 according as there is a large or short supply of other food. 

 Winter is the season when a sufficiency of heather is most 

 valuable, owing to its being evergreen, and from its habit of 

 growth standing up on a strong woody stem, so that sheep get 

 readily at it during a storm of snow. It resists well the action 

 of frost in ordinary years, or if covered to a small extent by 

 snow ; but, sometimes after a long " black " frost in winter, it 

 becomes of little value late in spring before the new shoots appear. 

 This particularly if it is very old ; i.e., if it has been too lung since 

 it was burnt. The burning of heather may take place any time after 

 it is dry enough in spring until 11th April, when grouse nests 

 begin to be found, and it would be injurious to the game. When 

 thought desirable by all concerned, burning may go on for fourteen 

 days longer, with an order from the sheriff and the consent of the 

 proprietor. It is a most necessary operation for every one who 

 has in it an interest that can be measured in money. There is 

 only one right treatment, although there are fifty different 

 opinions about it ; and we are sorry to say the matter does not 

 rest there. Heather burning has been, and is, the cause of 

 much dispute and bad feeling between tenants and proprie- 

 tors ; and the strange thing about it is, that whoever is in the 

 wrong, be he tenant or proprietor, is doing, although he may not 

 know it, an injury to himself as well as to his opponent. If too 

 much surface be burnt by the tenant, then there is not enough 

 shelter for the proprietor's game in the shooting season, but at the 

 same time the tenant's sheep will suffer during the first severe 

 snow-storm, the very time that heather is most valuable. He 

 has no doubt more heather-growing land in good summer feeding 



