HEATHER - BURNING 393 



intelligent experiment has slowly been working its way towards comparative 

 hygienic success ; to see where methods have failed through incorrect deductions 

 from observations of natural phenomena ; to indicate broad lines of moor manage- 

 ment in accordance with our present standard of knowledge ; and lastly to lay 

 down lines on which further experiments can be tried with reasonable prospects 

 of success. 



In the early days of Grouse shooting, when shooting rents were low or non- 

 existent, and the Grouse was an appanas;e of the sheep farm, not the 



, ,,.'.. History of 



mam rent producer of a hill property, the moorland in the majority heather- 

 of cases was burned by the farmer and his shepherds. The methods 

 used were rough and ready, but effective. The object, as set out in the tack 

 or lease, was to burn one-tenth of the moor ; the driest and most 



Heather 



windy days were chosen, and, provided the hirsels were burned formerly 



burned by 



approximately in the authorised proportions, the matter of a few acres sheep 



,. .,,. -Tipi- farmers. 



more or less in a single burning was not considered oi much importance. 



Judging from occasional bags recorded it is probable that during this period 

 the actual stock of Grouse throughout the country was often very considerable 

 though the stocks were seldom fully shot and the recorded bags are so scanty 

 that an exact comparison with the results of the present day is impossible. 



In the middle of the last century in England, and in Scotland a few years 

 later, railway facilities, improvement in guns, increase of wealth, and, more than 

 anything else, fashion, made the sporting value of the Grouse moor gradually 

 approach the grazing value of the farm. 



The Grouse, up to then the occasional victim of the landlord and his friends, 

 or of the poacher for the pot, became all at once a saleable article, for which 

 there was, and has been since, an ever-increasing; demand. The moor- 



. . .... . Heather- 



owner was quick to realise the enhanced possibilities of his property, bnruing 



tii*3iiisiGrr6Cl 



keepers were appointed to even the smallest acreage of heathland, togaine- 

 and the rights of burning the moor were transferred from the shepherd 

 to the keeper, under the mistaken idea that the policy of burning to benefit 

 Grouse, not sheep, would at once increase the yield of birds. 



It is a curious fact that, while the average man can predict with some degree 

 of certainty the immediate result of any change in the existing order of 

 things, the correct calculation of even secondary consequences requires the 

 attention of brains of a very different calibre. When the landlords in their 

 wisdom appointed the keeper to the rule of moor-burner they achieved their 



