CAUSES OF DESTRUCTION 323 



of sheep. The brothers, John Sobieski and Charles 

 Edward Stuart, mention the occurrence of a great fire in 

 Lord Lovat's deer forest of Glen Strath- Farar, "where twelve 

 miles of pine, birch and oak woods, were burned in the 

 tenantry of the late Eskedail to improve the sheep pasture." 



In another way domestic animals have had an important 

 effect on forest growth. Writingof Tunisia, Principal Perkins 

 has said " In so far as young trees or shrubs are concerned, 

 the passage of a flock of goats will do quite as much damage 

 as a bush fire" ; and in 1835 it was recorded that in the 

 parishes of Urquhart and Glenmoriston in Inverness-shire, 

 "goats were formerly numerous but have of late been dis- 

 countenanced, as injurious to woods and plantations." In 

 The Origin of Species, Darwin cites a telling example of 

 the destructive effect of cattle-grazing upon the natural 

 development of Scots fir at Farnham in Surrey. On our 

 own highland moors in Inverness-shire, I have watched 

 seedlings of birch spring up year after year, even to a 

 hundred yards away from the parent trees, only to be 

 destroyed by Sheep and Rabbits as regularly as they grew. 

 In this way the natural spread of the woods is constantly 

 kept in check, and the upper limit of our forest growth has 

 been depressed even within the period of history. 



The same process has also affected lowland woods. 

 In primitive forests the decay and collapse of trees through 

 old age simply make room for the growth of new seedlings; 

 but in our own country such replacement has long been 

 ruled out of count by the presence of Rabbits, and by the 

 pasturing of domestic animals, which formerly roamed at 

 large in the forest areas. By these, the seedlings as they 

 grew were destroyed, so that the fall of each aged tree left 

 a new and irreplaceable blank in the woods. It is conceiv- 

 able that such a process, continued through the ages, may 

 have accounted for the disappearance of not a few ot 

 our primitive woodlands. Old Scots law recognized the 

 enmity between domestic herds and forest growth, for it 

 ordained in 1686 that Cattle should be herded in winter and 

 in summer for the protection of planting. Further it is on 

 record that in recent centuries, as in the parish of Drummel- 

 zier in Tweeddale, individual woods have been destroyed 

 by Sheep. 



