Indiscriminate burning of heather is another great drawback on
Sutherland and Caithness moors.
In Caithness, it will take fourteen or more years to grow deep, good
heather on the hill moors, and in Sutherland eight or ten.
The upper moors of Caithness, and also of parts of Sutherland, carry
very little really good heather; in fact, only on the burn banks or dry
knolls does it grow.
The remainder of the ground is broken, knotty peat bog, with short
stunty heather, and stretches of deer grass, with wet flows on the
upper flats. All good shooting ground in fine weather, and birds like
it then.
Birds rely on the deep heather for shelter and food in the winter. Burn
that out, and they go where they can find it, and don't return. It is
just the same as if you burn down a crofter's house and his crops, he
must move on to somewhere else.
Some of the best moors in Caithness have been ruined, and cannot
be recovered for very many years, to the very serious loss of the
proprietors, from incessant burning and shooting down breeding stock
after disease, both attributable to the almost culpable negligence,
certainly ignorance, of those in charge of the regulation of the
burning and the letting of the moors.
The burning is a far more serious business than the shooting down of
stock.
One fool of a factor did say to me (he is dead and gone, or I would not
name it), "Perish every grouse, before a blade of grass shall suffer."
The sheep rent on the moor to which the above referred is gone because
sheep do not now pay on that ground, and the grouse rent--the best rent
of the two--is also gone, because the heather is burned off clean as
the back of your hand.
In Dalnawillan, heather burning has been with me a constant wrangle
with the proprietor or his representatives, or the sheep farmers, no
matter the clear agreements to the contrary, protecting the heather.
If I was fighting anybody's battle, it was in the interest of the
proprietor; the question was one far more important to him than to me.
Burning, to do it properly, is a very expensive process on such
extensive ranges as the Caithness moors.
In Dalnawillan and Rumsdale, it needed four parties during the early
part of April, to do it properly, four men in each party. One man to
kindle, and keep on kindling; the other three men armed with birch
brooms, watching and regulating the course of the fire, beating it out
where it unduly spreads, or beating it out altogether to rekindle in
case of a change of wind in a wrong direction.
Unless the weather is quite dry for a week or more, the rough ground
and deer grass, both of which it is most desirable to burn in the
interest of grouse and sheep, will not burn, and when your staff
of men are collected and got together, a sudden storm of rain or
snow comes on, and you are delayed for a week, and perhaps put off
altogether for that season.
Naturally, if you are prevented by weather from burning, the sheep
farmer is annoyed, because he does not get his burning done. He argues,
"Let me burn; I will burn as much in a day as you will in a week." And
so he would, but it would be the fine old heather that will burn, and
the shooting value of the moor destroyed for many long years.
I do not say that sheep farmers or their shepherds desire to burn,
and damage the shooting tenant, and also the proprietor (not that the
latter or his factor understand the question or appreciate the damage)
by burning out patches of good heather, the burning of which destroys
the cover appertaining to hundreds of acres, and so destroys the
shooting.
One shepherd certainly, said he liked the ground burned, because it was
easier walking.
But if the shepherd is to burn, what can he do by himself.
He can do no more than kindle a fire, and let the winds of heaven take
it how and where it likes.
To get a good fire, he will get his back to the wind, and kindle a
well-heathered burn, and make a good clear sweep for half-a-mile, and
so destroy the shelter of five or six hundred or more acres for a dozen
years or more.
I have seen two miles in a blaze at one time, but not on my ground; it
was too well looked after.