RELATION TO HEATHER 91 



cesses are the more apparent and conclu- 

 sive when they are collated with innumer- 

 able others where the older system of 

 grouse management still holds sway. 



Recognition, therefore, of the vital 

 importance of having heather in high 

 perfection for the welfare of grouse, and 

 the application of this in practice, really 

 goes no farther back than about forty 

 years ago. Enlightenment seems to have 

 come from personal experiments con- 

 ducted in the field, prompted no doubt 

 by private interest. About that period 

 some of the greater owners of grouse 

 possessions, both in England and Scotland, 

 effected a marvellous change for the 

 better in the productiveness, healthiness, 

 and general betterment of their moors ; 

 and though by no means the only source, 

 or perhaps even the most potent element 

 of this improvement, undoubtedly the 

 more rational, painstaking, and regularised 

 system of growing heather and of heather 

 burning which was then introduced is 

 entitled to a large share of the success 



