RELATION TO HEATHER 95 



followed when notification is received 

 from the shooting tenant. 



To this day shepherds, gamekeepers, 

 and others concerned are not always 

 agreed as to the age when heather may 

 no longer be advantageously preserved, 

 but should be burnt. But a hard and 

 fast rule is really here impossible. Age 

 alone is frequently not the determining 

 factor. It is obviously impolitic to spare 

 certain extents of heather, though of only 

 a few years' growth, which, from an 

 abnormal action of frost or unusually pro- 

 longed drought, has, so to speak, been put 

 " out of action," while, on the other hand, 

 it is sometimes advantageous to retain 

 an extent of considerably older heather 

 which has preserved its vigour, and from 

 its situation is useful for shelter. What 

 would be a wise determination in one 

 case or district might prove quite the 

 reverse of this in another. The one 

 overruling thought to be kept constantly 

 in mind is that the object of heather 

 burning is economic benefit to the subject 



