SOIL AND SURFACE CONDITIONS 137 



The bulk of this mountain land, in a general way, con- 

 sists of ground which the agriculturist of the country, who 

 has been steadily appropriating every acre of useful soil in 

 the course of the last thousand years, has rejected as unfit 

 for his purpose, and has consequently obligingly presented 

 it to the sportsman and the grazier. The former values 

 it for the sake of deer and grouse, the latter for the 

 scanty pasture it produces for the summer grazing of 

 sheep and store cattle. Its surface covering consists 

 chiefly of heather, bracken, coarse grasses, rushes, gorse, 

 etc., below the 1000 feet line, while above that level a 

 layer of wet, spongy peat usually covers the natural soil, 

 on the surface of which sphagnum and other mosses, 

 lichen, etc., mixed with coarse grass or bog myrtle, usually 

 predominate. In the west of Ireland, and in many 

 parts of the Highlands of Scotland, this peat layer is 

 spread over large areas at low elevations, except where 

 boulders and ice-scraped rock surfaces have prevented its 

 formation. On certain hill-ranges covered with porous 

 soils the peat layer may not be found so low as 1000 

 feet, but it is fairly safe to say that the average condition 

 of all land above 1000 feet in the British Isles is unfit 

 for the intensive cultivation of either farm or forest crops. 



Within the last fifty years, but more especially in the 

 last twenty, rural economists and forestry enthusiasts 

 have paid much attention to this class of land. On the 

 Continent of Europe, land which is too poor or mountainous 

 for successful cultivation invariably carries a crop of 

 trees up to an elevation of 2000, 3000, or 4000 feet, 

 according to latitude and surface conditions. British 

 economists ask why the waste lands of Britain may not 

 be similarly covered with woods, and the government 

 and private landowners have been loudly called upon to 

 remedy this grave deficiency in land utilisation, and by 

 means of planting or sowing add to the beauty of the 



