Dalangwell Plantation — Strathy Forest
Courtesy of North Highland Forest District, Golspie.
As the compartments start at No1, planted in 1954, it is assumed that this was the first of the New Planting in what became Strathy Forest. The forest is sited well south in the glen formed by the Strathy River and was later added to by further acquisitions to the north also in the glen. (Open PDF and expand the size if necessary)
The annual planting programme continued until 1961 when most of the lower ground had been planted but resumed again ‘higher up the hill’ in the years 1965 to 1967. The tree species used on the peaty areas was the familiar Lodgepole pine (Originally called by its botanical name Pinus contorta – PC) but often in mixture with Scots pine and during one year with Omorika spruce. On richer soils nearer to the river, small areas of Sitka spruce and larch (European, Japanese and Hybrid) were planted pure and sometimes in mixture with Lodgepole pine. It is interesting to note the comparatively large number of Research Experimental areas that were located in this forest and in one area Larix laricina is annotated (Canadian larch).
Can anyone say where the Forester/ Head Forester stayed in those days, his name, the names of any the local people who worked in the forest and where they lived?
As usual with a national organisation there was a code and procedure convention for mapping of plantations some of which survive in the FC to this day. Acquisition boundaries were edged with a yellow ink (in this case green was used); compartment boundaries (rides) drawn in red ink; the extent of the planting in any year was given a light colour wash, outlined in green ink and the planting year written in green eg P.66; the compartment’s serial number and area in acres was written within the compartment sometimes within a small circle; the areas where different tree species were planted within each compartment were annotated with a species code eg SS (Sitka spruce), LP (Lodgepole pine) etc; different species areas in each compartment had to be separated by a dotted black line; internal fences, streams and other land usually indicated by a solid black line. Map scale was usually 6 inches to the mile.
Note that the annual reporting year and the planting year coincided at this time in that they ran from 1st Oct to 30th Sep. This avoided having an artificial split in the totals for the planting season which ran from November through to May. The Planting Year (PY or just P) was fixed as the first summer following planting and thus trees planted in Nov 55 and May 56 were both annotated P56.
Groups: Caithness and Sutherland, Maps of Forest and Woodland Areas