358 The Journal of Forestry. 



foot of the CuUeu pvices. ludccd, the very idea of tliis nortlicrn one- 

 sided county commanding so mucli higher prices for timber than any 

 other in Great Britain looks uncommonly open to doubt ; and if they 

 could only be realized, an average crop of timber at such paying figures would 

 completely put in the shade all the calculations of Brown and others as to 

 the great profits to be made from well-managed, or I should say well sold, 

 plantations. "With these remarks I close the subject, and leave your 

 readers to judge of their pertinence and correctness. 



Duff House, Banff, N.B. J. B. Smyth, 



13//i August, 1877, Forester. 



BLACK GAME. 



Sir, — In the last number of your Journal, at page 21A, I noticed an 

 article entitled " Black Game," in which Mr. Robert More calls attention 

 to the destruction of young Scots fir plants by Black Game. 



There are few proprietors or their foresters who have had any considerable 

 experience in planting on moorish, high-lying, or hilly situations, where 

 black game abound, Avho have not experienced much annoyance and loss by 

 their ravages. 



Hares and rabbits you can extirpate, or protect your young plantations 

 against them by wire netting, or by applying annually some of those pro- 

 tective compositions such as Davidson's of Leith; but how you are to cope 

 Avith birds is another and more difficult question. 



Foresters must never speak of injuring, far less extirpating, Black 

 Game. Many proprietors would not think twice of planting Scots fir 

 &c., for the express purpose of aflTordiug food for them. 



A number of years ago, Avhen the writer was engaged on one of the largest 

 estates in Scotland, where a a large breadth of upland moor was annually 

 planted with Scots fir, &c., an old man was kept for a few months in winter 

 and early spring moving about among the plants all day with a hand-rattle 

 whose skirr-rir for a time kept them at a distance, but even this proved in- 

 efFectual to scare them, as in course of time they got so well accustomed to 

 the rattle that they would sit on the top of a tree with the utmost non- 

 chalance, while the old man plied the rattle vigorously at the bottom. 



I know an extensive proprietor, who is a most successful planter on low 

 ground Avhere game are very plentiful, but whose success is to a great extent 

 attributable to wire netting, with which he encloses every inch of ground 

 before putting in a plant. A great deal of money has been expended in 

 netting, but when the plants are from seven to eight years old, and out of 

 the reach of vermin, the wire netting is removed, and a fresh piece of 

 ground enclosed, and he is now in a position to plant from G0,000 to 

 70,000 forest plants annually, and requires to purchase very little extra 

 netting. Last year the same proprietor, having a considerable extent of 

 hill ground to plant where black game are plentiful, had the ground 



