DEER FORESTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9915, 2 August 1910, Page 2

DEER FORESTS.

DEPOPULATION OF SCOTLAND.

Undoubtedly the most striking of British wildernesses to-day, alike in number and extent, are the Scottish deer forests. Numbering only five in 1812, they increased until, by 1888, there were no fewer than 111, covering a total area of nearly 2,000,000 acres. In the process, unfortunately, a good many sheep and cattle, and even their humble owners, the crofters, have been displaced. Deer forests naturally vary in character and extent. Speaking generally, they comprise wild country, high mountains, corries and glens, with plenty of moorland and somo pasture. In these davs there is comparatively little woodland. Almost all other game, and sheep and cattle are excluded. The heather only lives somo .ten or twelve years, so that about a tenth part of it has to be burned annually. In each forest there is generally a sanctuary, an area into which the deer are, not stalked or pursued. Somo of the most extensive and well known of the Scottish deer forests aro the forests of Mar in Aberdeenshire, which extend to no fewer than 80.000 acres, Bkokmojint in Argyllshire with 70,300 acres, and Reay m Sutherlandshire, 64,000 acres. Then thero is that wild tract amongst the Grampians—Athole Forest, and that other bleak and forbidding expanse, Ramioch Moor in Perthshire: Eothiemurclius, lien Alder and Glenmoro in Inverness; Torridon, Applecross, Wyvis and Kinlochowc in R'oss-shire, and Dunrobin and Loch Inver in Sutherlandshire. In fact, there are some fourteen, deer forests with areas varying from 30,000 to 50,000 acres. Most of**them, of course, are leased by the proprietors to wealthy sportsmen. Sutherlandshire is the deerstalker's paradise. Only some three per cent of its area is cultivated. Its wild rolling moors culminate in lofty Benmcre Assyut and conical Suilven. Its glens and valleys are dotted with 300 lochs and tarns, and it stretches away to the lonely promontory of Capo Wrath, on which pyramid of granite gneiss a lighthouse marks the most north-easterly point, of Britain, nearly seventy miles from Lairg, the nearest town. We venturo to think, says "The Scot at Hamo an' Abroad," that few readers can, at a glance, realise what this means to Scotland--" the draining from her veins tho best of her blood." Heai' apain. what is- said in an article entitled,''"The Call of the West," speaking of the emigration of Scottish agriculturists to Canada, , many of whom have been reft of their homes and farms to give room for the deerslayers—• " But what docs all this moan for Scotland as a. nation? It all means that Canada, is asking for—and getting —of Scotland's beat at the rate of 3000 per week during tho emigration season. The total for this year will probably bo about 25,000 —some authorities put it as high as 30,000. So that by the autumn Scotland will be the poorer by this many men and women in the prirue of life, and Canada will be richer at Scotland's expense. The population of Scotland—good, bad and indifferent—is about 4,500,000. How long can she stand the draining away of 30,000 a year of her best?