KEEPERS AND KEEPERING 431 



there should be no departure, that the keeper should be the owners and 

 not the tenant's servant. The reasons for this are many, and it Keepers 

 would be hardly necessary to go into any of them were it not that the owner's 

 this somewhat obvious precept is as often honoured in the breach ^'-'"''"ts- 

 as in the observance. 



A tenant, from the very definition of the term, is an individual possessing 

 but a temporary interest in the moor he rents. The tenant's keeper also, 

 whose arrival and departure synchronise with the period of his master's 

 lease, naturally looks to his immediate superior's interest rather than to the 

 future welfare of the estate, or of those permanently connected with it. 



In cases of Grouse moors where the heather is well burned, where there 

 are no troubles connected with rabbits, sheep stock, or rights-of-way, and 

 where, broadly speaking, the interests of both contracting parties are identical, 

 difficulties may not occur ; but this satisfactory state of affairs does not 

 always exist. 



On a badly burned moor, with large tracts of rank, overgrown heather, it is 

 difficult to see how the immediate interests of a progressive landlord and those 

 of a shooting tenant on a short lease can ever be made to coincide. 



. . ^ • (- ^ ■ Conaict of 



If the landlord knows his own interests, his first object must be to interests 



11- 1 c • 1 1 1 • 1 1 • between 



burn big stretches of stick-heather in order to get the moor into a landlord 

 proper rotation of burning. The tenant, on the other hand, should 

 he be equally well informed, knows that though such heavy burning may 

 be beneficial to the moor in future years, the resulting crop of edible heather 

 will not be increased during his occupancy. 



The keeper, therefore, who burns in the tenant's interest will burn in 

 the smallest patches, not in order to increase the food yield so much as to 

 provide basking ground for the old birds, and drying ground for the young 

 chicks. He will leave severely alone the big blocks of old or dying heather, 

 for on these he depends for cover for the stock of birds which happen 

 to be on the ground, their prospective food value not being his concern. 

 This method of heather management, though suicidal, is by no means 

 uncommon, and instances could be given in Scotland and England of 

 magnificent moors on which no long heather is being burned, and which at 

 the end of the current leases will show a decrease of 50 per cent, in value, 

 and that for many years. 



Another reason why the tenant should not directly employ the keeper is 



