338 Harvie-Brown : Improvements of Grouse Moors. 



and stems only ?,coxc\\Q.d\., for grouse — but burned out by root and 

 branch, iox deer: because deer do not like to tread on heather 

 stumps ; and because grass will not grow where stumps are left, 

 but ji/c)?<«^^TO^£'/' heather recurs. 



(2) Deer-grass succeeds and yields fine deer-food for a few 

 years. ' We don't want the grouse,' says the deer-stalker of the 

 present day, who pays ;^35 for a stag. 



(3) The grass gets rank and white, and may again be burned ; 

 but burning will not destroy or affect the bracken-roots or the 

 bracken seed, which is the sure resultant in many hillsides of 

 the killing out of heather. If rank and white, deer won't look 

 at it. 



(4) The bracken seed of 100 years, on any old crofting- 

 ground or 'lazy-bed,' sprouts and grows, seeds, and sows, up 

 to the furthest skyline, in many places well known to me. 

 Where, formerly, 450 brace of grouse were shot, now, not four 

 brace of birds can be met with in a day's walk in June or July ! 

 I can instance some of these if need be ! In ten years or fifteen 

 — I venture to prophesy, from what I know of certain places — 

 there will be no heather ; no deer-grass fit for deer ; but bracken 

 and rabbits only. 



(5) The author of the pamphlet blames sheep ! Highland 

 cattle were once in evidence. Then, black-faced iiative sheep — 

 ' moor-sheep ' he calls them ! Then came Cheviots — ' pale-faced 

 marsh sheep ' let me call thetn, for want of a better name. Now, 

 both Cheviot and black-faced are mingled. But sheep have 

 given place to deer, and one almost continuous vast 'fashion- 

 able' deer-forest extends from Cape Wrath to the northern 

 borders of Argyll. 



Yet long ago — 1835-8 — when Sir Francis Mackenzie of Gair- 

 loch lived (and knew his property) he had plenty of both deer 

 and grouse — as I can prove from his own letters written there, 

 in the heyday of his wise management. Now, a.d. 1903 — 

 'Look over the march fence' — desolation and temporary deer- 

 grass ! ! Wait a little, and I venture to prophesy from facts 

 I have already ascertained, there will soon be bracken and 

 rabbits, rabbits and bracken. And perhaps by that time some 

 new fashion may come in, when rabbits will be classed as the 

 highest value of wild animals for sport. 



Far from there being a continuance of a * barbarous past ' in 

 the conduction of our Highland properties, there is a crudessence 

 of ignorance by men not born and bred there, and who are 

 unaccustomed to the management of the land. To those who 



Naturalist, 



