260 



The licences and dog-tax total to £453,000, which, going to the 

 Revenue, relieves the country of so much taxation. 



In the item of cartridges there is a marvellous outlay. Giviog to 

 each of the 44,800 men who shoot in Scotland, say, only 200 shots in 

 their few days' visit, we gather up 8,960,000 empty cartridge-cases. 

 These when full cost l^d. each, so the little item of cartridges shot off 

 in Scotland costs annually £42,000. Double that for the shooting 

 outside Scotland, plus what may be fired by keepers, schoolboys, and 

 by those who, beyond ammunition, incur no other expense, we can 

 reasonably assess the cost of cartridges used in shooting game at an 

 annual amount of some £130,000. 



In Mr. Lyall's book I find those paying the heaviest rents recorded 

 as follows : Mr. Hamar Bass, for Achnashellach, £4,500; Lord Hindlip, 

 for Invermark, £3,500 ; Baron Schroder, for Glenfeshie, £3,300 ; Lord 

 Burton, for Glenquoich, £3,022. Then come many tenants with rentals 

 of from £1,000 to £2,500, and scores of men paying from £500 to £1,000 

 a year for their sport of a month or two. He does not record the rental 

 paid by the American, Mr. Winans, who, for the past seven or eight 

 years, has rented at some £10,000 a year enormous ranges of moor and 

 forest which he neither shoots himself nor allows anyone else. 



From the Sportsinan's Guide I also extract the following informa- 

 tion : " The largest shooting rental of any county in Scotland is Inver- 

 aess-shire, with over £90,000. Perthshire follows with about £75,000, 

 then Ross-shire with nearly £60,000, Argyllshire with about £35,000, 

 and Aberdeenshire with over £30,000. The other counties figure at 

 smaller sums. 



According to the figures given in the recent report of the Crofter 

 Commission, " there are 109 deer forests in Scotland, having an area of 

 1,975,000 acres. The yield of stags from these forests may be fairly 

 taken at about 4,500 each season, and the rental at about £30 per stag^ 

 or £135,000." That shows a rent per acre of just sixteenpence half- 

 penny ! 



From another authority I learn that the average size of the deer 

 forests of Scotland is something under 20,000 acres each. The Duke of 

 Fife's Forest of Mar, in Aberdeenshire, is the largest, extending to over 

 •80,000 acres. Next comes the Black Mount Forest, in Argyllshire, the 

 property of the Marquis of Breadalbane, which is very nearly the same 

 size. The largest holder of afforested land in Scotland is the Duke of 

 Sutherland, who owns 212,658 acres, yielding the comparatively small 

 rental of £6,845, or 7|d. per acre ! 



In proportion to the rent of a moor, the grouse shot cost about 

 twenty shillings a brace. When all other expenses are calculated, each 

 bird will cost the lessee twenty shillings. Pheasants cost quite as 

 much. Likewise with regard to a deer forest. Each stag shot has 

 to be paid for in rent something like £30, while the other expenditure 

 brings him up to from £50 to £60. Every salmon caught in Scotland 

 with rod and line costs the lessee at least £5. When sent to market 



