Strathyre Forest Nursery circa 1950
The image is courtesy of William Fleming, Polmont, who photographed it from a Forestry Commission leaflet on Strathyre Forest many years ago. The lovely image shows ongoing lining out of larch trees with the horse plough turning the soil up against the roots of the young trees held in the lining out boards. The three ladies next to the camera are filling the lining out boards with the young seedling trees ready for the next row.
Willie says
‘I saw this one in a book a while back, it shows Strathyre Nursery in the early fifties , Jimmy Mckenzie with the horse, Donald Kennedy on the Plough also and Jimmy Dewar levelling the soil in front. I can't identify the man behind Donald on the plough but I am sure that Jimmy Dewar is the man to the front . It looks like people are lifting trees and bundling for planting out on the hill at the work station in the distance.
The railway line is the Callander to Oban which ran through Strathyre and was still open at that time. The nursery shed on the left held the various implements required for nursery work and acted as a store for newly lifted plants. It was also a place where the carcasses of deer were hung up for butchering and distribution to the workers and locals.
One of the more unpleasant tasks we apprentices had was dragging red deer shot on the hill down to the nearest access road to be loaded on to the land rover. For two sixteen year olds this could mean a fair old pull over some distance down the rack paths (especially if it was a mature beast). I much preferred dragging out first thinning trees by hand to roadside.’
Can anyone name the ladies?
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Groups: Forest Nurseries, Forestry in Action, Groups of people, Horses at work in Forests