JANUARY 15 



hostile to good forestry. The first of these is deer-stalking, 

 which is absolutely incompatible with any young wood 

 whatever upon certain extensive tracts of waste land; 

 the other is cover-shooting as practised at present, especi- 

 ally if part of the plan be the maintenance of a heavy 

 stock of ground game. 



As to deer-stalking, leaving out the islands which are 

 unsuitable for planting, it is only a comparatively small 

 proportion of the counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross 

 and Cromarty, Inverness, Perth, Argyll, Forfar, Aberdeen, 

 and Bute which is devoted to deer. These counties 

 amount in aggregate of acres to about eleven millions 

 and a half, whereof about 424,170 are under woodland 

 and 2,000,000 acres are deer forest. 



Trees cannot be grown profitably in the latitude and 

 climate of Northern Scotland at a greater elevation than 

 1500 feet; much of the deer ground lies above this 

 level ; and of that which lies below it there is a great deal 

 like the Moor of Rannoch and the Caithness wastes which, 

 although it undoubtedly bore continuous forest at one 

 time, is now sour, deep moss, and would require herculean 

 preparation and drainage before it could be induced to 

 do so again. Therefore, before the reformer casts covetous 

 eyes on the deer forests of the north, a beginning ought 

 to be made upon the great waste lands which carry no 

 deer. Consider, for example, that great tract of moor 

 and mountain which constitutes the southern uplands of 

 Scotland. It extends from the Lammermuirs on the east, 

 across the counties of Peebles and Lanark, skirts the great 

 Ayrshire coalfield, and rises to its greatest height — 2764 

 feet — in the Kells range, between Loch Doon and the 

 Solway, Practically the whole of this great territory is 



