134 PROTECTION OF AFFORESTED AREAS 



enjoyed during the past few decades before the war. 

 The large area devoted to deer forests in Scotland, 

 some 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 acres in extent, will 

 require to be considerably curtailed in the interests 

 of the people of the country-side and of the nation. 



DEER may be first considered. The two species 

 which will have to be protected against are the red 

 deer and the roe. The former spend the summer 

 and autumn seasons up on the rough mountain sides 

 and tops ; above the elevation at which present 

 planting is contemplated. But the winter is passed 

 on the lower grazing-lands, on areas which fall 

 within the prospective planting zone. The damage 

 they are capable of committing in young plantations 

 is very great. It would be essential to keep them 

 out till the plantation had reached a minimum age 

 of, roughly speaking, twenty years. And this age 

 might have to be exceeded. 



This would entail high and expensive fencing some 

 seven feet or so in height, and where deer are kept the 

 owner should be forced to pay for all such fencing 

 and for its maintenance during the period required. 



It will be necessary, as already mentioned, to 

 reduce the area of existing deer forests. This latter 

 point will not in all probability prove of such diffi- 

 culty, as it is unlikely that sporting values will for 

 a long time to come reach the figure they enjoyed 

 before the war, and many owners are likely to be 

 ready enough to convert some of their deer forests, 

 or the plantable portions of them, into commercial 

 woods, these areas having lost their former high 

 value as deer forests. 



