I am convinced that much may be done in improving grouse ground in the
north of Scotland. Make ground habitable and suitable for grouse, and
they will come without any further trouble.
Grouse like wettish ground, especially in hot weather, presuming that
there is dry ground available for them to nest upon, and feed and sit
upon in wet weather.
Now, by judicious surface draining, much may be done.
When the ground slopes from the low hills, the surface water works
over the face of the ground, thoroughly soddening it, and rotting the
heather that would otherwise grow.
The drains are simply small sheep drains cut on the surface, slantingly
across the slope, wherever there is fall enough just to run the water.
The drain intercepts the water, runs it off, preventing it from running
over the ground below the drain, and immediately dries the ground
immediately _below the drain_. Heather grows some yards wide, and there
the birds will sit and nest, and you have created increased grouse
ground.
The expense, in view of the benefit is very trifling. A pair of
drainers during the summer months, say a cost of £50, will get over a
very large extent of ground.
The proprietor was constantly endeavouring to sell the property, in
which event my lease would drop through, and he was impervious to any
arrangements as to draining, otherwise I should have done the whole of
the Dalnawillan ground. As it was, I did do some odd bits, at my own
cost. One beat, near the lodge, I scored over with a few hundred yards
of draining, and converted it from a bad to a good beat.
Such draining, of course, improves the ground for sheep as well as
grouse.
I presume the time will come when proprietors will see that profit will
accrue from cultivating their moors for the purpose of carrying grouse,
by endeavouring in all ways to improve the heather by judicious burning
and draining, in sufficient amounts to carry as large a stock as is
reasonable for the extent of ground. I see no reason whatever, if you
offer as favourable conditions to the birds, why they should not be as
plentiful on ground A as on ground B; as a matter of fact they will be.