Borgie Forest Map — 1st Planting after Fire
Map courtesy of North Highland Forest District. (Click on PDF and enlarge to see detail)
This remarkable map is almost certain to have been the working map used and updated by the local Head Forester at Borgie Forest from after the fire until about 1956. It contains a wealth of incidental information in side notes and also indicates the progress of replanting the forest after the devastating fire which would appear to have occurred about 1941. The first replanting on a modest scale seems to have started almost immediately in 1942 (P42) with small scale work in the later war years but the larger programmes did not start in earnest until 1949 and much of the former planted area was again under trees by 1956. Surprisingly large amounts of Sitka spruce were used, some in mixture with Lodgepole pine, but Scots pine and larch feature strongly in small groups or areas in what is a very complex species map. The notes indicate of the use of basic slag to fertilise some of the crops, probably as a response to some of the poor growth that must have resulted from so much Sitka spruce in among the heather. Note also the much changed fence line as the result of a subsequent survey. There is no indication of any ground treatment and assume much of the ground must have been hand drained and turfed or ploughed. Can anyone confirm?
It is interesting to note reference to two tree nurseries, one near Borgie House and the other noted as Achnantot Nursery well south on the western edge of the plantation. Was any of the Borgie House buildings the Forester’s residence at this time and previously?
Please click on the PDF to see the map and enlarge up to as high as 200% to see the planting detail.
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.
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Groups: Caithness and Sutherland, Maps of Forest and Woodland Areas