Forest Record - Whitehaugh Forest, Aberdeenshire
Record Book courtesy of Forestry Commission Moray and Aberdeenshire Forest District, Huntly.
This is one of a few Forest Record Books that have survived since this system of recording the details of the forest work in each new forest was changed after the early 1950s. Two copies of the book were maintained one at the forest and the other by the District Officer but in reality both were maintained by the District Office as it was only they who had a typist. It is likely the forester had to provide a written summary for the DO to work off.
The hard back cover had a sophisticated and durable locking system to retain the loose leaf pages as they were added when each year’s work was completed. The pages came in several categories R3 – Staff Record; R4 – Annual summary of Operations; R6 Silvicultural Notes by Year; R7 – Plantation History. Looking over the forms and also the print run details on their bottom edge this system of recording work was only initiated in 1935 and ended circa 1953. No doubt these forms were themselves summarised by Division, Country and Nationally. The form R1 still survives today as the annual planting record and always had its own folder.
The Divisional Officers covering this part of the Conservancy are named in the Record as H M Steven 1935, F Scott 1938 and Acting Div Officer L A Newton 1939 which ends the record.
The District Officers named are A Watt 1935, T H Woolridge 1938, I J Stewart 1939 and I Gillespie 1941 - 46 when the record ends.
The Foresters/Foremen are listed as C McDowall 1935, W Mackay 1940, F M Mitchell 1942, C Duguid 1945 and a pencil note W Douglas 1952.
The forest operations record and history describes quite difficult soils, compacted and shallow. Ploughing with a 28 HP Caterpillar tractor and single furrow plough started in 1938 but mainly on the drier slopes as hand draining and turf mounding was still the normal practice on the wetter sites. There are mentions in 1938 of a use of double furrow plough on part of the site and also a single furrow on the hard compacted soils at 1200 foot elevation which was covered with heather and lichen. In 1951 they were using the RLR plough on the low quality compacted stony soils trying to get some better growth from the planted trees. Reports from visits by Roy Robinson and others mentioned elsewhere on this site were probably the prime initiators to try ploughing deeper and create more suppression of the competing heather. The reports end in 1954 when they were trying an experiment of planting by direct notching of plants in screefs above the former planting limit.
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports, Northeast Scotland