Balblair Forest Planting Map — Inveroykel
The maps are courtesy of North Highland Forest District, Golspie which were photographed by Norman Davidson.
This map shows another large acquisition again on the south side but further west up the Oykel River. This area was next to another acquisition on its east side, Strathkyle, which was then next to the large Rhelonie/Loch a’Choire area surrounding Carbisdale Forest on its west and south sides. However large portions of these areas contained grazing outrun for the local crofters and permission to plant was not given on some sizable areas. In hindsight, in landscape terms, this helped break up the solid forest mass on the south side of the Oykel River.
This planting started in Compartment 67 and worked its way up to 98 between the 1963 and 1966 planting seasons. The small high elevation experimental plot was set up in 1967. The early plantings contained some Scots pine but as the planting moved up the hill and away from the River, the species of choice was Lodgepole pine in increasing proportions reflecting the wetter and more peaty conditions. Some hand written note indicate the shooting tenant was Mr Maitland and that the unplanted high ground was unlet outrun grazing.
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.
Groups: Caithness and Sutherland, Forestry Areas, Maps of Forest and Woodland Areas