325
	Norman Davidson
	1964

Benmore Forestry Students - Mark and Measure

Photograph courtesy of Pat McAuley.
A little bit of posing perhaps but too dark to photograph in the woods. The photograph shows a typical Mark and Measure team made up of in this case Gilly Dunbar (left), Jim Pratt and Brendan Jones with the marking board. The role of the team was (1)to identify and mark those trees that needed to be thinned out to allow the best of the crop space to grow and develope into large good quality saw mill sized timber (2) provide measurement information to calculate an average tree size and total volume to be removed in the thinning operation from the stand of trees.
The equipment needed for the operation is shown: slimline lightweight Swedish axes (alternatively slashers) to blaze the chosen trees to come out, girthing tapes to measure the circumference at chest height of a percentage of the marked trees and also a marking board on which to record numbers of trees marked, the numbers and girths of those trees which were girthed. Not shown here but also required is equipment to fell a much smaller proportion of volume sample trees which were measured in much more detail to provide a better estimate of the total volume marked. Timber was often sold as standing trees to merchants on the basis of these worked out volume estimates.

It was always a juggling act to mark enough trees to give the remaining trees space to grow, to remove as many of the poorly shaped trees as possible, but not too many trees to open the crop over much and so bring on early wind blow and also abide by the guidlines with stated the appropriate number of stems, the average size and volume which should be in any given stand at particular stages in its life.

Interpretation of all these points always caused a discussion as no two people would mark a stand in same way and endless hours would be spent discussing the merits of this tree and that one and why some should come out and others definately not.
Picture Added on 28 April 2008.

If you found this interesting, have a look at the following groups of pictures.
Forester Training Schools
Forestry in Action
Groups of people
Tools and clothing