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sepamte from changes associated with the effects of feeding and
d~ and urine deposition and seen to be small relative -to the latter
judghg by the findings of Floate (4 972). h!oreover, as Weloh &
Cumins (prs. cm.) point outl the frequent occurrence of frost
in British upand areas wili tend to minimize any trend t mzrds
o ompaot ion.
Soil eroaion asaociated with grazing does not appeGr to have been
studied much in Britejn although eroaion gullies, which may be partly
an effect of the grazing animal, ere seen frequently on hill graeins.
Thomrts (j965) describes sheet zrosion beginning from '%urmstt or
"kunkers" used by sheep as sheltering places in the Plynlimdn and
other moorland amas of Wales and we hzve obsorvod fans of aroded sot1 below
%bunkerst' an grassland on the lower fells in the Southern Uplands
of Scotland, %he Pennines and the Lake Estrict,
Anohtier aspect
of erosim is the slow downhill movement of soil, Thonaaa (1 959)
mentions the movement of a prticular sheep-path two feet downhill in
four years, but in such exaqloa dinuntanglement of the effects of Mart,
effects of' the animal, and natural dovn-kill soil movement is dif'f'icult .
me effect of the hoof is more pronounced an wet soils, where the animal
tends to slip and slide mom than on dry soils,
The sod which protects
the soil surface ia broken more easily by cattle than by sheep because
the former exert the groat er hoof pms sure (~abla).
In New Zealand, &ere soil erosion is rccognised as a problem associated
with grazed, hill-soils, Gibbs (I a) has outlined the variou,: types of
erosion which mcur and stressed the need for assessment of permfaaible
stocking densities on particular soil types.
These and other oomments
, rvhi.ch he makes,appear to be relevant to soil coneelvation in the Lake
District,