Heather Burning. 



575 



only were there few birds and frequently recurring outbreaks 

 of disease, but the graziers' complaint that there was not 

 enough young heather and grass to feed the sheep-stock 

 became more and more common, and big sheep-farmers in 

 many districts came to rent the shooting as well as the grazing 

 of their holdings in order to get control of the heather- 

 burning. 



In 1 87 1 and 1873 the Game Laws Commission investigated 

 the relations of the sporting and farming interests, and some 

 very interesting facts were elicited. Not the least important 

 of these facts was the similarity of heather conditions required 

 for sheep and for grouse. This was brought out by the 

 evidence of farmers who had leased the sporting rights of 

 their farms, and who spoke of doubling and trebling the bag 

 of grouse by burning tracts of ground in order to get the land 

 back into the proper rotation for sheep, viz., one-tenth of the 

 moor burned per annum. 



A great outbreak of disease occurred in 1872 and 1873, and 

 about this time the patch method of burning came into 

 fashion, and the proportion burned dropped from one-tenth 

 to one-hundredth part of the moor per annum. It is to the 

 small size of these patches and the consequent small propor- 

 tion of the moor annually burned, more than to any other 

 cause, that the persistent recurrence of grouse disease is due. 



Burning Recommended by the Committee. — Taking all 

 things into consideration, the Committee recommend a fifteen 

 years' rotation, i.e., that a fifteenth part of the moor should 

 be burnt annually. Under this system the amount of edible 

 heather represents 60 per cent, of the total acreage of the 

 moor, compared with 9 per cent, in the case of a hundred-year 

 rotation, or 18 per cent, in the case of a fifty-year rotation. 

 This means that a well-burned moor can carry seven and a 

 half times the stock of the moor burned on a hundred-year 

 rotation, and nearly four times as much as that of the average 

 moderately burned moor. 



"The object to be aimed at is clear, that every bird should 

 have its tufts to nest in at the edges of the burned ground, 

 its bare ground to sun itself in and on which to take out its 

 chicks; its older heather for concealment, its breast-high 

 10-inch heather for feed, its well-matured heather for seed 

 and shelter in winter, and, finally and of most importance, its 



