Annual report Speymouth Forest 1958
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.
Two version of this report are to hand the first apparently a draft but both reveal one or two interesting points in different ways. There had been a change of forester staff and Bob Allison has added comments against named foresters (C O Mackintosh, G S Stewart, J O Webster and LC McCallum and W J Gordon) in the second version of the report.
In the first version of the report there is a description of felling with chainsaw for a gang of men following on behind with axes. In the thinning operation the sawman cuts partway through the tree and gets it to lean over and immediately moves on to cut other trees in the same fashion for periods of up to half a day or more thus leaving perhaps hundreds of trees all hanging over at various angles . The axe men come behind, bring the tree down, and sned before moving onto the next. These may have been smallish trees but certainly not a recommended safe method for today!
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland