Lining out at Lower Nursery, Pitfichie Forest
Photograph courtesy of George Beaton, Kintore.
On left is young George Beaton with his colleage George Brownie working in the Lower Nursery (above Monymusk), Pitfichie Forest. George was then part of a four man/boy team that worked in the nursery in this case lining out young Sitka spruce plants possibly one year old. At this time the transplant bed would have been ploughed over but there after all work was done by hand.
In this case George and his colleage are using short lining out boards which they have just filled with evenly spaced out young plants and are in the process of pinning the boards on the edge of a hand cut vertical edge trench with the plant roots hanging down into the trench.
Once the boards are in place the trench is back filled by spade and the soil packed level trapping the young tree roots and creating another eight inch platform of soil on which another vertical edged trench is cut for the next line of plants. This work at the time was done by the two men in the team (one called Sandy Forbes) while the boys filled the lining out boards.
Note the guide line for hand cutting straight plant line trenches and the metal pins beyond the boys for pinning further sets of lining out boards.
George remembers they were paid on picework or bonus at 6d per 1000 plants lined out ( men received a little more perhaps 7p) and the target for the four man team was 26000 per day! The wage was paid fortnightly in those days and for the boys would not have been much above £4 for the two weeks including Saturday working.
At the time the squad numbered about 65 men for the whole forest of Pitfichie, swollen no doubt by the returning demobbed service men. The Head Forester was Charlie MacDowell assisted by Foremen or Under Foresters Jim Fraser and Arthur Biggar (Fife) who went on to take charge of Corrennie Forest when it started up in 1949. George well remembers that hiring and firing was simple matter in those days with any transgression rewarded immediately with the books and men shown the way down the road.
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