Something about Deer Forests 



371 



and other servants all the year rouad, and 

 thirty-five additional shepherds would be 

 required in the low country in winter. Were 

 houses procurable, there would be on each 

 farm, besides the farmer, two families, and as 

 grouse require about as many keepers as deer, 

 the sheep-farming population would be in 

 addition to the present inhabitants. Instead, 

 therefore, of its present population of -ten 

 families (excluding the shooting parties). 

 Mar Forest, if occupied as sheep grazings 

 and grouse shootings, would maintain forty 

 families besides forty-five servants, and es- 

 timating each family at four persons, a popu- 

 ation of 205 including servants, against the 

 present 40 — without reckoning the trades- 

 people and others the enlarged population 

 would support. 



RENT. 



As sheep grazings alone, Mar Forest 

 would, in the same proportion as Baddoch 

 and Auchallater, fetch ^3307 los. ; but a 

 sum of say ^2^307 los. would have to be de- 

 ducted for interest on houses for ten sheep 

 farms — leaving ^^3000 as the grazing rental 

 of the Forest in its present state, excluding 

 the value of the six shooting lodges. The 

 grouse shootings of 90,000 acres, with lodges, 

 would certainly fetch ^2000, and Mar Forest, 

 if let as grazings and grouse shootings, would 

 thus yield at least ^^5000 of annual rent. In 

 1871 the whole of the Forest was entered in 

 the assessor's valuation of the country at 

 ^2520 ; in the roll for 1872, just made up, 

 the amount is raised to ;^3o58. Of the 

 former sum, ;^23io is for shootings alone, 

 and of the latter, _;^2 65o — the balance being 

 houses, policies and woodlands. It has been 

 .stated that deer will exist where sheep can- 



not. From all I have been able to learn the 

 reverse is the fact. Sheep will live at a 

 higher elevation and on scantier food than 

 deer, and if together in the same forest, 

 sheep, if sufficient to stock the grazing, 

 will soon drive the deer elsewhere. The 

 increasing cost of wintering hill sheep is 

 urged as an objection to increasing their 

 number, but if wintering costs more, 

 has not hill grazing also advanced, and 

 sheep still more ? Lowland farmers complain 

 of the scarcity of store beasts to consume 

 their turnips, and the great rise in the price 

 of store sheep during the last few years 

 proves their scarcity. Without, however, 

 discussing the point at length, the agriculture 

 of the country may be safely depended on 

 to adjust itself to provide for the maintenance 

 of sheep, so long as it is profitable to pro- 

 duce mutton and wool. Mar Forest for 

 sheep grazing, although an average of Aber- 

 deenshire forests, is not equal to those in the 

 adjoining counties, but, in the absence of 

 fuller information, the comparative statement 

 given above may be accepted as not over- 

 estimating the average capabilities of deer 

 forests on the east coast of Scotland. With 

 similar information regarding an average deer 

 forest on the west coast, and, in addition, the 

 total area of Scotland under deer forest, 

 which the Ordnance Survey Office may be 

 able to supply, a practically reliable estimate 

 could be formed of the number of inhabitants 

 sacrificed to form solitudes for deer, and the 

 loss of butcher meat and wool by substituting 

 deer for sheep. 



I have only to add that the reasons for 

 selecting Mar Forest are its being the largest 

 and most compact in Aberdeenshire, and its 

 boundaries the most easily defined. 



