From the Editor - FCA Homefca-today.com/FCA Today Summer 2013.pdf · 2016. 3. 31. · that struck fear into the hearts of our ances-tors. The resin from the tree was used as a heal-ing

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The newsletter about former Forestry Commission employees Issue 49 - Summer 2013

This issue features manyarticles that have notbeen contributed bymembers. I have had tofind copy from othersources. My appeals forcopy have fallen on deafears. There is almostnothing in the pot for theWinter issue.So please get writing,otherwise – no issue.

We had a successful AGM in Mayorganised by the Yorkshire group. TheAGM itself and dinner were held in a veryhistoric building in York, Lady AnneMiddleton Hotel, and the tour visited CastleHoward.

Full details with photos can be found on thewebsite, check on the Message Board.Geoff Barry took the photos, look for thewell kent faces. My word they do look fit!

Richard Toleman

From the Editor

Contents Page

FC

A T

od

ay From the Editor 1

Sheer Nostalgia 2

Scots Pine - Scotland’s Proposed National Tree 4

Scots Pine in History & Folklore 5

Sorbus Leyana 6

Felling Eucalyptus Regnans in Victoria, Australia 8

Shetland Hazelnuts May be First for 4,500 Years 10

Obituary 11

Contact Details 12

FCA Today Issue 49 - Summer 2013


Sheer Nostalgiaby Martin Fletcher

Musing over some nostalgic parts of one’sFC career. the article below picks out someof the more amusing and interestingaspects.

The Peculiarities of FC FormsThe A4 really takes the biscuit. This pocketsize enumerated form, in pads of 50, about thesize of a box of SwanVesta matches, was areceipt for money givenout by the FC, i.e. theopposite of the A35.They had to be guardedwith the penalty of awarning letter if lost, butso much for security. Iremember throwing awaya couple of books, onepart used, when clearing out an old office.

In times of high fire danger, following aConservancy Instruction, and carryingeverything one needed to fight a fire, it statedyou also had to include a book of A4’s. Thiswas just in case you enlisted help from amember of the public and then having giventhem a couple of quid, you had to ask them tosign for it on an A4. Of course A/C Gen 3zcould be used in the same way.

Now what aboutthe U3a. We allknow the U3bC o n v e y a n c eNote but U3a’s,called I thinkC o n v e r s i o nNotes, were put to

a much more devious use. The same size asU3b’s but with green ink on the top copy anda buff counterfoil, these little beasties were atremendous help in sorting out the Hoppus footvolumes on the S6. For instance it waspossible to convert a product, say 100 small pitprops, to a larger size. For example, 100 x 3’by 3” top diameter could be changed to 100 x3’ by 3½” TD, and also for correcting the stock

ledger after ‘taking up’ or stocking. The S6,being like double entry book keeping only withtimber produce in H ft, was a nightmare tobalance if very rigorous checks were not kept.

Then there were pads of forms A74b’s, toclaim compensation for fires started by steamengines from The British TransportCommission. Don't forget that other nefariousform the FC34, whereby the DO could, at aglance, spot any slack in piecework ratesetting. Also I have seen a copy in the NewForest of a B10 Loss of Stores Report, beingsubmitted to the Conservancy Office, for a 20pGAIN on a camp site day’s takings!

The R1 of course, was by far the most usefulform, collating plant seed provenance tocompartments planted. This may have beendesigned by Lord Robinson and to perpetuatehis name, was the only form with the prefix R.(Is this correct? Can we still identify todayorigins of yesteryear plantings? Is the modernFC capable of retaining such records over thelife of a crop? Any ideas? Ed.)

Stump TreatmentNow some reflections on stump treatment.In the Deanwhen Is t a r t e d ,creosote wasin vogue.T h e ns o m e o n espilt half agallon on the grassy bank on the Sundial Ride,just opposite the front door of the SpeechHouse. The patch of dead grass was there for10 years or more!

Then the Dean changed to sodium nitrate,which was fine until at least one horse ontimber extraction took a few gulps and droppeddead. Polybor came in next. This was apowdered boron compound and when mixed

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with water was a clear liquid. So it had to bemixed with a blue dye, called Methyial Violet,at a teaspoon to a gallon. The blue dye was sofine and hydrophilic that it got into everything.This dye should not be confused with theWaxoline Red used with gas oil and 245-T.

Simultaneously along came Peniophera forpine stump treatment. It was very temperaturesensitive, being a fungus in suspension, andwas diluted daily in water with any left over thenthrown away. The concentrate needed fridgesand little cool boxes for transport, not easy inforest conditions.

Finally someone came upwith pre-dyed boxes of ureaprills that made life verymuch easier.

Office ArchaeologyIn moving around southern England, bothbefore and after retirement, and as a bit of adetective, the evidence of long lost ForestOffices remain from the halcyon days of 450forests in the FC estate, in the early sixties.

The main give away feature is usually someunder thinned scraggy NS. This was plantedlong ago near the office for Christmas treesand totally forgotten when it closed down.Closer examination usually reveals some coilsof rusty 10 swg or maybe even 8 swg mild steelwire. You might even find the odd WW IIballoon cable drum, so loved as a seat by theinhabitants of wet weather sheds.

The concrete base of the office can sometimesbe found, with evidence of where the safe wasbolted down. Likewise, a short distance away,was the base of the wet weather shed andmaybe even the skeleton framework of the 600gallon gas oil tank amongst the bramble andscrub. Kick amongst the leaf litter and you willfind old winch cables or if you are luckyenough, an Alice Holt drawbar. Every site hasdifferent treasures of the good old days.

Ex FC houses immediately manifestthemselves when yousee two or moretogether with aLawson Cypresshedge, or maybeoccasionally even awestern hemlock one,and the odd Douglasfir in the garden.

As you travel by train on the mainline fromDidcot to Oxford, look outfor large Douglas firs as youapproach Oxford on thewestern side of the track.

You can tell who wasemployed at the KenningtonResearch Nursery by ahuge Douglas fir or Leylandcypress in the back garden.

Enough reminiscing on the idiosyncrasies ofthe FC in an earlier incarnation. Perhaps it istime we repeated the old ditty, much loved byDermot Bevan, eminent FC entomologist andeditor of that amusingly written pamphletEntopath News. “Why didn’t the femaleHylobius cross the road” Answer on page ……..

Answer: “Because the Hylastes ater”

Post Script. Now come along all you retirees,the editor is crying out for copyor FCA Today will die. It doesnot take long to put pen to paperand there must be lots of storiesout there to be told, it need notbe 1,000 words like this story.I would like to rest my penhaving contributed every year for the past eightyears.

(Martin – don't do that, you're all we've got!Ed)

Sheer Nostalgia continued



The news thatScots pine isproposed forS c o t l a n d ’ snational tree iswelcome; theold Caledonianpine woodsare among themost beautifulplaces inScotland.

However, the statistic confidently andrepeatedly related by pine wood charities thatonly one percent of the area once occupied byScots pine remains under pine today, is highlymisleading. It ignores the research both ofenvironmental scientists like Cindy Froyd,formerly at Cambridge and now at OxfordUniversity, and Richard Tipping at StirlingUniversity, and of environmental historians.There is, in fact, no way to tell how much ofScotland was covered with pine at any one timein the past, as the tree came and went indifferent places at different times, the variationin range primarily driven by climate. It probablyreached its peak over 4000 years ago whenindeed its range stretched, unevenly, betweenCaithness (briefly even to Hoy) andStirlingshire. Its decline between then and about2000 years ago was dramatic, and apparentlymainly due to natural causes, though the spreadof prehistoric human farming and grazing bydomestic animals must have had a part to play.

By the time the Romans came the extent ofScots pine was possibly in aggregate not vastlygreater than today, and at the end of the middleages the great majority of the woods that werein existence then are in existence still, thoughsome may have been larger. Perhaps a dozenwoods have vanished (or almost so) since 1600,

mainly in the rainy west or at high altitudes,during the so-called Little Ice Age of theseventeenth century when wet, wind andcold increased.

Old tales that attribute the decline of thepinewoods to the Romans, the Vikings andthe English iron masters of the eighteenthcentury are just plain wrong, though stillretailed with gusto by (for example) ChrisPackham on the BBC in a recent AutumnWatch programme.

Scots pine in Scotland is at the westernedge of its world range, and verysusceptible to climatic change. It isadmirable to be allowing pine to regeneratemore widely in and around ancient woodslike Abernethy and Glen Moriston.

To be planting it in places where it hasnever grown before, or only grew manythousands of years ago in quite differentcircumstances of climate and soil (for whichthe Forestry Commission will even givegrants), is not restoring lost ecosystems,but making up new ones.

(First published in The Herald, 14th January2013)

Scots PineScotland's Proposed National Tree

by Professor T.C. Smout



Scots Pine in History and Folkloreby Karen Bell

All evergreens wereconsidered symbolsof life and immortali-ty, especially theScots Pine. Pinecones were consid-ered representativeof the male genitalsand were consid-ered a masculinefertility symbol.Flaming pinebranches werewhirled clockwiseround the beds ofmothers with new-born babies to purifyand protect them.

Scots Pine was con-sidered the King ofthe Forest and was

the tree of heroes, chieftains and warriors. Thiswas the tree that was planted on the graves ofScottish warriors who died in battle or wererenowned in their time.

The Scots Pine is the tree that made up mostof the ancient Caledonian Pine Forest andwhen we visit the remnants of these ancientforests, you can still feel the awesome powerthat struck fear into the hearts of our ances-tors.

The resin from the tree was used as a heal-ing ointment for boils and sores, the barkwas used for fevers and the young buds forscurvy.Pine resin was also added to paint, varnishand tar to make it more effective and the tarwas often used for waterproofing and seal-ing the hulls of boats.

Pine logs were also used in boat building.These were always cut at the waxing moonwhen the sap of the tree was at its highestas this made the boat more buoyant anddurable. The roots of the pine tree werebeaten and separated into thread like fibresand then spun like hemp to produce rope fortying boats. This particular rope was used fortying boats because, like the logs the ropemade from the roots of the pine tree wereextremely buoyant.

The Official FCS page ‘Enjoyscotlandsforests’is now active! Whether you are planning a dayout, want to know what’s on in your area, oryou want the latest news on wildlife, mountainbiking, walking, cycling, camping, stargazing

or any of the other great activities taking placein forest locations across Scotland, visit theForestry Commission Scotland's newFacebook page:http://www.facebook.com/enjoyscotlandsforests

Forestry Commission Scotland on Facebook



An article appeared in the Western Mail on 9th

July 2010 entitled Naturalists go wild over thefuture of a rare species. It goes on to say thatin 1957, one of the founder members of theMerthyr and District Naturalists' Societyidentified a Ley's whitebeam at Penmoelallt.At that time the FC had just acquired 1500ac.there which included the woodland where theSorbus grew, and I was the newly appointedassistant forester.

The founder member of the society was a localschool teacher. He had access to thegymnasium where he put we local teamfootball players through our paces. Heenquired about my work and I replied that I wasassistant forester at Penmoelallt. Heimmediately invited me to join him thatSaturday afternoon to see a tree that he hadrecently discovered on a limestoneescarpment in the Taff valley. On reaching thetree, and referring to a text book, he identifiedit as a very rare whitebeam. The book hadbeen written by the Rev. Ley and the tree hadbeen named after him, Sorbus leyana.

The numbers of S. leyana stay remarkably lowbecause of the way it reproduces, breedingnew micro species by hybridising with rowan(S. aucuparia). Unlike common whitebeam, itcan produce seed without pollination formingclones, but it also has this strong associationwith rowan.

Two years ago, I called in on Dr. Natasha deVere at the National Botanic Garden of Wales,where she is Head of Conservation andResearch and who has a keen interest in thedevelopment and survival of S. leyana. I wasable to verify the hearsay that seed had beencollected in 1957 and taken to Tal-y-Bontforest and sown at Usk nursery. I confirmed

that 7 seedlings had been raised that weresuitable for replanting at the parent site atPenmoelallt.

Dr. de Vere told me the original tree atPenmoelallt had perished but regeneration hadoccurred at the spot where the tree canopy hadbeen opened. Six of the original plants had

Sorbus Leyanaby Peter Charlesworth




Sorbus Leyana continued

survived while the present regeneration waspartly Ley's whitebeam and partly rowan. Asthey both appeared in the open space which,if either, was the more light demanding? Theanswer to this will add to the characteristics ofS. leyana and its survival.

More can be discovered about Ley'swhitebeam on Google eg.www.gardenofwales.org.uk Also look at S.leyana fieldwork. A specimen has beenplanted at the Garw Nant V. C.

Continued from previous page

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In July 1950 I saw an advert in the Melbournenewspaper said, “Skiing weekend…skissupplied…contact…”.Jack Campbell and I left Melbourne oneSaturday morning and at Warragul, we wentnorth to Noojee and the Great Dividing Range.

We climbed Mount Bawbaw (5120ft) to the tinysettlement of Tanjil Bren (3000ft). We enteredthe belt of Mountain ash (E. regnans) andclimbed to the huts, house and abandonedsawmill of Newlyn (3500ft).

I gawked, open-mouthed, at the trees aroundthe clearing. They were immense, tall, thick,and straight with bare trunks that weresupported by wide buttresses. The onlybranches were away up at the top.

Jack and I shared a hut. It had two beds, a bigfireplace and an oil-lamp. There was plenty offirewood outside. We lit the fire and took ourmess tins to the kitchen in the house for oursausages and tea. We sat on a bed in front ofthe now-blazing fire to eat and drink. “This isalright!”

The next day we carriedour skis up a well-markedtrack to a gentle slope withsnow and scattered,malformed trees at about4,500ft. and had a goodday’s skiing.

We returned to the hut before dark where wemet one of the lads felling the huge trees and

invited him over after tea. Our guest wasleaving the next Friday and I thought about thisthe following day. I hadn’t come to stay or tomake my fortune. I only wanted to see Australiaand have new experiences. Here was a chanceto fell trees that were more than twice as thickand tall as any I had seen in Scotland. I phonedthe company office and had a job.

When felling we worked in pairs,I was with Wally. We axed four2in holes in buttresses at chestheight and hammered in pegs.Standing on these, we did thesame again and again until the

top ones were on the trunk. We circled this withplanks. On one side we sawed horizontally asfar as possible, then axed a V. We did the sameon the other side. We extended the Vs until thehuge tree stood on a tall pillar of wood. Wesawed and chopped a V on the downhill sidethen removed most planks andpegs. We went in on the uphillside until sawing becamedifficult. Then we sawed andwedged, sawed and wedged.Finally Wally shouted “Getdown”. I got behind an uphill tree. When thewedges were free, Wally put them and thehammer into the bag and threw it down, thenhe joined me. The tree started to fall, branchesbroke off. Massive chunks rained down. Thetree crashed down and roared away downhill.Carrying the saw, spade, tape and our axes,we went after it.

The crown was shattered, but enoughremained to bow the trunk. We had to uppercut.We sawed down as far as possible then tookturns to stand on top and chop Vs in the sides.We dug a crosswise trench, knelt down andsawed upwards. As the tree settled sawingbecame easier. Eventually tree and crownseparated. We measured 33ft and did thesame again. From one tree, we usually got five33 foot logs, a 20 footer and a very thick shorterone. Every log had an incised groove for theextraction cable.

Felling Eucalyptus Regnans in Victoria, Australiaby Eric Crofts




Extracting was done using a bulldozer.Starting with the longest logs, they were hauledto the landing. Wally and I sat or stood on thelast one. The logs lay on the long, wide, raisedramp on the forest side of the clearing. At theother side was a motor winch. Its cable wentthrough a pulley block suspended above andjust beyond the edge of the ramp. The logging

truck backedunder thepulley and itstrolley wasunloaded andattached to thetruck. Thewinch cablewas coiledaround the firstlog rolling it onto the trolleybolsters. Theother logs

followed until the truck was loaded. I continuedfelling for some time. I never made a fortunebut I learned a lot about felling big trees!

In 1952 I left Australia after an extensive touracross the continent.

The 6 weeks trip home was very pleasant withstops at Colombo and Aden. I slept under thestars on the top deck in the Arabian and RedSeas, looked up at smoking Mount Etna androse before dawn to see the Rock of Gibraltar.

As we came up the Channel we clearly sawfields, trees and houses. A girl from NZ said“Isn’t it green!” I felt a surge of pride. Yes. Thisoften cloudy, often wet, often cool dear old lando’ mine was green; a beautiful benign green.

Felling Eucalyptus Regnans in Victoria, Australiacontinued

Continued from previous page

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Shetland Hazelnuts May be First for 4,500 years

Now here’s a thing. Hazelnuts have been foundgrowing on Shetland for the first time in 4,500years, it was revealed this week.

What adiscovery! Ourhumble hazel –C o r y l u savellana –producing fruitwhere sciencetells us it can’tor shouldn’t.Hazels requirean averagetemperature inSeptember of

12 degrees C to set viable fruit. But Shetlandhas an average September temperature of only10.5 degrees C – and the summer of 2012 wasnot particularly warm.

The discovery has astonished naturalists, whobelieved the climate in Britain’s most northerlyislands was too harsh for hazelnuts to grow.

Until now, the only hazelnuts on Shetland couldbe found in supermarkets or in fragmentaryremains buried in the layers of peat set downbetween 4,500 and 9,000 years ago. Hazel isa tree of the western seaboards in Scotlandforming very extensive stands.

These ‘Atlantic hazelwoods’ are older than theoakwoods and older than many of ourCaledonian pinewoods. Indeed, pollen evidenceshows that hazel has been there for 10,000years.

But 24 hazelnuts have been discovered onthree out of 30 hazel shrubs which have fruitedfor the first time sincethey were planted inthe late 1990s. Thehazel shrubs that hadborne the fruit hadbeen planted at theLoch of Voe around1998 from seedstaken from saplings atTorridon in the north-west Highlands.

And will this discovery unlock further secrets –like those of the Staosnaig hazelnuts onColonsay where, in 1995, archaeologists foundevidence of very large-scale nut-processing,radio-carbon dated to c9000 years ago? Thescale and location of the activity there was alsothought to be unusual, suggesting that theisland community was trading processedhazelnuts with other island and mainlandcommunities.

If they weren’t carried in baskets hazelnutsmight also have made the trip by sea quite bythemselves. If you take some hazelnuts and putthem in a bucket of water, they do indeed float,seemingly without any harm coming to them. Itis not known however if they can remain viableafter an extended period in sea water butperhaps we will find, like the Shetlandexperience, that hazelnuts have capacitybeyond our expectations.

Sources: The Scotsman 5th March 2013 andScottish Native Woods

Do you have any articles for publication in this magazine?

Send your articles to the editorby e-mail to: [email protected]

by post to: Richard Toleman, Manuel Stables, Linlithgow, EH49 6JF.



Visit the FCA Today website at: -www.fca-today.com

Send your letters to the editor for publication in FCA Today

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by post to: Richard Toleman,Manuel Stables, Linlithgow, EH49 6JF.

OBITUARYJANE LINES, wife of Roger, passed away thisJune. She suffered from chronic rheumatoidarthritis for many years and recently lost hersight due to macular degeneration. This didnot stop her from caring for Roger whosuffered from dementia in later years.

Jane and Roger made many dear friendsthrough the Forestry Commission and asJane was a keen naturalist and birdwatcher,she enjoyed going on a number of forestvisits.



Peter Charlesworth (Chairman/Secretary)

Charles Dickens (Treasurer)

Charles Dickens (Group & FC Liaison Officer)

Richard Toleman (Editor)

ContactsFCA Today editor: -Richard TolemanManuel Stables

LinlithgowEH49 6JF

Telephone: 01506 845575e-mail: [email protected]

e-mail membership enquiries to: [email protected]

Forestry Commission AssociationManagement Committee

FCA Today is an FCA productionEditor: Richard Toleman, Manuel Stables, Linlithgow, EH49 6JF. Tel: 01506 845575. e-mail: [email protected]

The next issue of the FCA Today magazine will be available (depending on whetherwe receive any articles from you) on the www.fca-today.com website on 5th

December 2013.Articles for inclusion in the next issue of the magazine should be sent to the editorbefore 1st November 2013.

The new fixed publication dates of the FCA Today magazine are: -Spring edition: 5th April

Summer edition: 5th AugustWinter edition: 5th December

Visit the FCA Today website on these dates to download the latest edition of the magazine

Send your articles to the editor for publication in FCA Today

by e-mail to: [email protected]

by post to: Richard Toleman, Manuel Stables, Linlithgow, EH49 6JF.

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From the Editor - FCA Homefca-today.com/FCA Today Summer 2013.pdf · 2016. 3. 31. · that struck fear into the hearts of our ances-tors. The resin from the tree was used as a heal-ing