The FC Postings of John C. Keenleyside.
My second FC posting - Bush Nursery, Penicuik.
I arrived there in the early Spring of 1956 having travelled up from Yorkshire in my own car over the week end. The Forester in charge was D K Fraser a forester who had been trained in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh as did a number of the early foresters in the F.C. Donald Fraser was an expert Nurseryman who later left the F.C. and went to the private sector to manage their nurseries.
Bush Nursery is now the site of the Northern Research Station. In 1956 it was a production nursery for plants to be used in forest experiments and was also the base for Genetics (Tree breeding) staff of Colin McLean and his wife Joss, who travelled extensively finding PLUS trees and collecting breeding material from them. Part of my work was to help with the grafting of collected scions on to established root stocks in nursery beds. The area of the nursery was approx 2ha and had a small hut at the top to act as a joint office. I had to wait until Colin reversed out before I could go in!!!
The areas available for experiments stretched from the coast near Dunbar to Clydesdale in West Lothian -
the latter a poor site with peat. Bush was at the south end of the area as Tulliallan was established on the North side of the Forth. The southern end of the area was down the Tweed valley taking in forests like Glentress, Cardrona, Elibank, Yair and Edgarhope.
The industrial work force was completely different from the Yorkshire men. They mainly came out to Bush from Edinburgh and tended to be intelligent, able could cope with the complexities of the research nursery and handling small lots of things like provenance plants but they found the likes of planting on steep stony Peebleshire hills tough going even when ploughed.
The projects in hand were planting seed orchards on the coast at Archieston, Poplars on a Reservoir site of Spott near Dunbar. This site became available because the dam that held the water burst during the floods which hit the East coast hard in 1947. Planting of broadleaves took place at Saltoun in East Lothian. Experiments planted in the Tweed valley were D.F. provenance at Glentress, Western Hemlock at Yair just beyond the then Peel Hospital. The only experiment that I remember at Clydesdale was one where we
compared Ground North African Phosphate with Triple Superphosphate. The triple super being attractive as it would reduce transport and application costs. The rate of application of the GNAP was one and a half ounces per tree and the Triple half an ounce per tree. The plants receiving triple performed poorly, on analysis it was found that the triple contained only 49% Phosphate whilst the GNAP contained 29%. A half rate of the Triple would have been more appropriate and ruled out the potential savings as the Triple was a more expensive product
On one occasion at Bush I was given an interesting task. The job to pick up a new Bedford van with sliding doors and steering wheel gear change and deliver it to Jim Ogilvie at Fort Augustus. I wondered why I had been given this task and it later emerged they were planning to send me further North. I picked up the van from SMT Edinburgh, brand spanking new and full of petrol, this was fine until I realised that it was drinking petrol and I had to purchase further fuel at Tyndrum and pay for it out of my own pocket (No cards in those far off days). I was travelling up Black Mount and into Glencoe when I saw some forestry ploughing and some characters finishing off the hand drains. I stopped and asked is this the Glencoe pilot plot as we had sent plants up there. One of the characters emerged from the drain and said ‘‘Is’t yin o thon schemes that was designed by egg heads in Edinburgh and they other yins from Fort Agustus came doon and planted but they never sorted oot the drains.” I delivered the van and was sent to the coldest B&B in town.
The next day I went back to meet Angus Macdonald who took me out and demonstrated the famous experiments on the Lonmor. He told me that the powers that be proposed to send me North to serve with Geoff Bartlett at Ardross and work in the three Northern counties, so after one year at Bush I was on the move again.
My memories of Bush include the heavy soil in the nursery that grew good plants but best avoided in wet weather; workers making half their journey to work by tram was a new experience and staying in Bush house an excellent hostel for agricultural students.
On to the third posting and to meet Geoff Bartlett in January 1957.
The cover photograph by John is of Larch female flowers.
Groups: Forest Nurseries, Forest Research, Forestry Areas