Annual report Speymouth Forest 1956
The reports are courtesy of Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District, Huntly.
This is one of a series of annual reports written by Head Forester R A (Bob) Allison and describes the year’s work on the forest under a listed set of headings. Each forest would send their report to the District Office who would then compile a report for the whole District this then forwarded to the Conservancy or Directorate Office. This series of reports which have been unearthed, run to 1965, but although a number of intervening years are missing they do give a strong flavour of the annual work programmes; a unique insight into the issues and problems as well as the highlights of managing a forest over a period of fifteen years.
The total area of the forest is recorded as 12 536 acres of which 2768 acres were still in hand for planting. At this point the various costs have been allocated against account numbers representing the different operational activities. These numbers evolved over the years but the pattern and choice of number sequence would have been recognised by the next generation of foresters into the new millennium. Labour numbers have returned to more modest levels with 45 through the main part of the year boosted to a maximum of 70 over the winter period. Note the tightening of the wage budget in the comment that the salmon fishers could not be employed for the usual 6 autumn and winter months their start being delayed this year from August to 27 September 1956. Since the very early days the Forestry Commission’s financial year ran from October to September the following year to coincide with the tree planting year which was normally November to May. This accounting anomaly was not changed to the more normal April to March period until the 1970s.
The planting programme was recorded as 657 acres at 59/6 per acre and also 4507 bushels of cones were dried and extracted indicating that this forest was used by several other forests and estates for seed extraction.
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland