408 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



comparing them with similar results on well-burned moors, it will be possible 

 to arrive at sufficient data to give the number of years for the first rotation. 



It is probably generally true to say that on a moor on which heather grows 

 readily, and on which all the heather is burned before it has passed its best, 

 heather springs from the root the year it is burned, and comes into flower 

 sometimes in the first and generally in the second or third year. That on 

 a badly burned moor situated 600 to 1,200 feet above sea-level the ground 

 covered by partly withered heather of an average height of 2 feet will remain 

 black for two years after burning, that for the next three to five years it will be 

 covered by grass and cross-leaved heather, and that six further years will be 

 necessary before there is a full yield of edible Calluna heather. This will 

 mean a handicap of nine years, and on a moor of this sort a rotation of 

 twenty to twenty-five years should, in the first case, be attempted. It must 

 not be thought that for the whole of these nine years the ground is useless. 

 During that period it is useful for old birds as a basking-ground, and for 

 young chicks as a feeding-ground ; and the early grasses and seeds and even 

 ferns that grow there are not without value. It will afi'ord, however, little or 

 no spring food. 



Having fixed the rotation and the acreage to be burned, the next thing is to 

 decide on the allocation and size of the individual patches or strips. We will 

 Size of suppose that the badly burned moor is one of 4,000 acres, that there is a 

 patches. sufficient labour supply, and that the rotation attempted is to be one 

 of twenty years {i.e., one-twentieth of the heather ground burned per annum). 

 The amount to be burned every year would be 200 acres ; but to make up for bad 

 burning seasons 300 acres should be attempted whenever seasonal conditions 

 permit. 



To burn this area in patches of one eighth or one fourth of an acre is obviously 

 impracticable ; even allowing for an area of 50 to 100 acres being burned in big 

 blocks (flow ground or high ground with a northern exposure), it would be impossible 

 to burn the remaining twelve hundred odd strips necessary to make up the 

 total acreage prescribed. It is therefore necessary to decide on certain general 

 lines of moor-burning which will give the necessary total area burned, and still 

 maintain the patch system as far as possible. This will be obtained by treating 

 each type of heather on its own merits. 



Example of '^st. To buru old heather in strips 50 yards wide , and let the strip 

 run as far as the fire will take it. 



