HEATHER-BURNING 351 



to persuade him that at certain seasons there may not be enough 

 food for at least an equal number of Grouse. 



Let it be at once admitted that through the summer and 

 autumn, even on the worst moors, there is abundance of food ; 

 but then at that time, except for a previous infection, Grouse 

 do not die. Let the doubter visit the moor in March, when the 

 heather seed has fallen from the pod, when the young heather 

 up to four and six years old is frosted a clarety red or brown 

 colour, when the old stick heather sparsely distributed and bare 

 of side shoots does not carry a " canopy " with which to keep 

 out the withering effect of the cold winds and frost, and he will 

 find a very different state of affairs. Careful examination will 

 show that the close-growing six- to fifteen-year-old heather 

 with a thick matted covering affords the only feeding at this 

 time of year, and that even here the shoots are green, not at 

 the top, but half-way down the stem, where they are protected 

 from the weather. 



It is at this time that the real test of moor management Rotation, 

 is seen, and a little careful study will prove to demonstration 

 certain facts not found in the philosophy of the " small patch " 

 enthusiast. Granted the premises set out above, it follows that, 

 if the moor is being worked on a hundred years' rotation, the 

 total amount of spring-feeding heather, that is to say, the amount 

 that lies between six and fifteen years of age, is roughly 9 per 

 cent, of the total area of the moor. If the moor is burned on 

 a fifty years' rotation, which is the rotation of the majority 

 of moors to-day, the amount is 18 per cent, of the total area. 

 If, however, the heather is burned on a fifteen years' rotation, 

 the rotation the Committee advise, the amount of edible heather 

 represents nine years out of a total of fifteen, i.e., do per cent, 

 of the total acreage of the moor. That is to say, if we admit 

 the early spring months to be the critical time in the life history 

 of the Grouse no great admission seeing that it is in spring 

 that disease invariably appears we shall realise that a well- 

 burned moor can carry seven and a half times the stock of the 

 moor burned on a hundred years' rotation, and nearly four 



