Annual report Speymouth Forest 1961
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.
This writing of this report for some reason has resorted back to a hand written copy by the forest clerk. In it Bob Allison says thatthe forest is now supervised by himself as Head Forester, another Forester and a very competent Ganger who works more or less as a Forester. The other point of note is the two instances of strong winds in 1961 which blew down an estimated 130,000cu ft of timber.
Towards the end of the report there is a detailed description of the progress of the resurveying the forest by a specialist survey team of foresters based temporarily in the area. There is some description of the resurveying of the original acquisitions, the measuring of the plantations planted and all the unplanted areas such as electricity lines. The survey of sub compartment and forest crop details has still to be done before detailed forest stock maps can be prepared. This is the first real change in the forest plantation maps since the hand drawn and coloured planting maps which were the norm up until this point.
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland