576 



Heather Burning. 



[OCT., 



six- to fifteen-year-old heather to keep it in health and vigour 

 in early spring." 



Methods of Burning. — Old heather should be burned in 

 strips, for when old stick heather is burned the fire is so hot 

 that the roots are charred and killed; in this case regenera- 

 tion can only proceed from seed, and, if the burned areas 

 are narrow, self-seeding is materially helped by wind-blown 

 seed. While it is necessary to burn off blocks of old heather 

 in strips, it is advisable at the same time to get a considerable 

 area burned on one beat of the moor. 



Sheep always rush to the newly burned ground for the 

 sweeter grasses that grow there, and unless there are good 

 stretches of burned ground for them to feed on, they will 

 concentrate on the small isolated patches and pull up all the 

 young heather plants as they spring from seed. Everyone 

 who is acquainted with a moor in autumn must have observed 

 the hundreds of little brown shrivelled-up heather seedlings 

 pulled up by the sheep's teeth on every patch of newly burned 

 ground. To obviate this wholesale destruction it is some- 

 times considered advisable, where the sheep stock is heavy 

 and the moor has a tendency to go back to grass, to fence 

 off areas of old stick heather for two or three years after burn- 

 ing. This gives the young heather a chance of coming 

 away, and once rooted it can defy the efforts of the stoutest- 

 toothed "black-face." 



Old heather should, whenever it is possible, be burned 

 "against the grain," that is to say, against the lie of the 

 heather sticks. "Back-firing" or burning against the wind 

 gives a very clean burn, the fire travels slowly, and destroys 

 not only a larger percentage of the stalks of the heather, but 

 also burns into the "fog" or moss which surrounds the roots 

 of old stick heather. Owing to the shortness of the time avail- 

 able for burning in an average year, dampness of the soil, 

 &c, "back-firing" is not always possible. In the case where 

 an overcrop of partly charred sticks have been left it is advis- 

 able to run a fire through the burned ground a second time if 

 possible in the second or third year following the first burn. 

 This second firing has the effect of clearing the ground of 

 the charred heather sticks and burning off the moss, which, 

 having been exposed to the air, is drier than at the first time 



