HEATHER - BURNING 403 



rapidly losing its value as winter food. Burning on steep banks should be 

 carefully done so as never to reduce the total yield below the minimum which 

 is necessary for food in time of snow. 



In the interest of both sheep and Grouse wet "tiow"^ ground should be 

 burned in big stretches outside the ordinary rotation — if possible once ..pio^" 

 in every six years. Flow ground usually overlies deep, damp peat, and g'"0"°d- 

 is therefore protected from the full effects of the fire ; the grass and the stunted 

 heather in consequence come away quickly from the root. It is often difficult 

 to burn flow ground owing to the heather being broken up into tussocks, and 

 the driest weather should be chosen for the task. 



Knolls and hillocks are the favourite haunts of the Grouse, and however small 

 they are, never more than one - third should be burned at one time ; 

 the keeper's aim should be to provide in this way both food and 

 cover for the birds frequenting them. 



The keeper should invariably get at the northern slopes of his ground 

 as soon as the opportunity occurs. On high moors late snows North 

 make this possible only once in half a dozen years. hills. 



Grey heather killed by snow or frost should be burned wherever it appears ; 

 it is absolutely useless for food, and serves no purpose beyond cumbering the 

 ground. Probably also heather which has been damaged by beetle should always 

 be burned, as it is very doubtful whether it ever recovers from the attack 

 of this pest. 



Peat hags should be burned when the ground is not too dry. Grouse are 

 particularly fond of broken peat ground, and the food supply of short gnarled 

 heather that grows there should be maintained at its highest. The p^^^^ 

 peat itself occasionally gets on fire, and has been known on occasion ^'^g^- 

 to burn right down to the bed rock. In one or two cases that have come to 

 the Committee's notice excellent heather has grown on the mineral soil thus 

 exposed. As the new growth in such cases may take twenty or thirty years 

 to come up, such burning is probably outside the rotation that even the most 

 progressive of moor-owners would care to adopt. 



1 By "flow" ground is meant the flat stretches of peaty land where, owing to the retentive nature of the 

 soil, the surface water lies in pools and channels between tufts or tussocks of heather ; it is to be distinguished 

 from marshy or boggy land where the water lies in suspension below the surface. Flow ground cannot as a 

 rule be drained owing to the absence of a natural "fall," and even when drains are cut the nature of the soil 

 is not sufficiently porous to make them efl'ective. Flow ground grows a poor quality of stunted heather 

 usually mixed with sour -looking grass, yet Grouse are often found to frequent it during the daytime, 

 especially when it lies on a high plateau or immediately under the crest of a ridge. 



