In the fringe round the sea-board no trees will grow. It is only when several miles removed from exposure to the fierce blasts that come from the North Sea that they begin to thrive, but the whole Buchan district is conspicuously treeless. Almost every acre is cultivated and the succession of fields covered with oats, turnips and grass, which fill up the landscape as with a great patchwork, is broken only here and there by belts of trees round some manor-house or farm-steading. Except in a few places the scenery of this lowland portion is devoid of picturesque interest, yet the woods of Pitfour and of Strichen, the policies of Haddo House near Methlick, the quiet silvan beauty of Fyvie, which more resembles an English than a Scotch village, the wooded ridge that overlooks the Ythan at the Castle of Gight, are charming spots that serve by contrast to accentuate the general tameness of this lower area. In the higher region, the south-western portions of the county, agriculture is, to some extent, practised, but it is necessarily confined to narrow strips in the valleys of the rivers. The hills, which are rarely wooded, and that only up to fifteen hundred feet above sea-level, are rounded in shape, not sharp and jagged. They are, where composed of granite, invariably clothed in heather and are occasionally utilised for the grazing of sheep, but this is becoming less common, and year by year larger areas are depleted of sheep for the better protection of grouse. All the heathery hills up to 2000 feet are grouse moors. Throughout the summer these display the characteristic brown tint of the heather—a tint which gives place in early August to a rich purple when the heather breaks into flower. Long strips of the heather-mantle are systematically burned to the ground every spring. Such blackened patches scoring with their irregular outlines the sides of the hills in April and May give a certain amount of variety to the prevailing tint of brown. They serve a very useful purpose. The young grouse shelter in the long and unburnt heather but frequent the cleared areas for the purpose of feeding on the tender young shoots which spring up from the blackened roots of the burned plants.