Tree marking knife; the sustainable forestry tool

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This tool, in German called Baumreisser, and produced, predominately by German and Swiss tool makers, such as Victorinox (Switzerland) and Otter (Germany), has been an important tool for the forestry worker and forester in time past.

The tree marking knife, the Baumreisser (tree ripper), was used in the past by forestry workers after a tree had been felled and the branches removed used to mark the cutting length depending on the timber grade. Foresters too used this tool in order to mark trees for removal, either small trees for thinning operations or even large trees in mature stands. Those were marked with a cross, an “X”.

It has, in recent decades, been replaced, some would say superseded, by the spray can and the paint ball gun for marking trees for felling, whether large or small, and even as a marker as to where to make the cuts in a trunk according to timber value and class.

As far as I am concerned, however, the tree marking knife cannot and should not ever be seen as superseded and replaced as spray paint is not sustainable and that for at least two reasons.

Spray paint is costly in the long run and while a tree marking knife costs up to $60, depending on quality and source, it will last a lifetime and more, if looked after. Paint, on the other hand, is costly in the long run. While a can of the stuff may “only” cost a few dollars at a time over time it will be much, much more than the cost of the tool.

The measuring staff of the woodsmen that I have encountered in years gone by in Europe used to have a built-in “bark ripper” for the purpose of marking the place where to cross cut the trunk.

The folding Baumreisser, the tree marking knife, is better though as the forester can carry that with him easily on a “patrol” and mark trees for removal as and when they are noticed.

I encountered such a tree marking knife again only recently on the Felco stand at the 2011 RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show when the marketing manager showed me one of which they were given boxes and did not really know what they were for.

Initially even I, as a professional forester, failed to recognize them as I had only encountered them with a fixed blade or as part of another tool and I mistook the took for a hoof knife. Shame on me, I know.

It would appear that makers – some of them at least – are in the process of divesting themselves of the stock of those tools in the – in my opinion false – belief that the end of the tree marking knife has come.

The ones that I saw (and of which I was given a box) are made by Victorinox and are, in fact, no longer shown in their range. German makers still seem to produce them though.

As far as I am concerned we will be looking for this tool in the future again once petroleum – and the pain is based on it – has become unaffordable.

As far as I am concerned the tree marking knife, the Baumreisser, is far from dead and we will find that we will be happy to still have the skills to make them when the time comes and stocks left.

© 2011

A Handbook of Scotland's Forests – Book Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro), RFA 

A Handbook of Scotland's Forests edited by Fiona Martynoga
by Reforesting Scotland
Published by Selaband, Glasgow, 12 May 2011
224 pages, Paperback, illustrated with line drawings
ISBN: 978-188735486-8
Price: £ 9.99

In 224 pages this handbook, while being concise, is remarkable comprehensive and covers about everything anyone needs to know about reforesting, and not just (in) Scotland. 

Despite the fact that the book is talking about Scotland's trees, as the title suggests, it is also similarly applicable to the rest of the British Isles (almost). 

Part one of the book deals with “Three Craft”; the what, where, why and now, including seed gathering, growing and planting and everything in between and related. 

Part two profiles the various species of trees (and shrubs) in Scotland and, as said, to a degree this and the previous part are also applicable to the rest of the UK. 

Exceptions there will be as regards to some laws as Scotland has different laws, legal provisions and legal system in comparison to England (Wales and Northern Ireland), and this also applies to land law and forest law.

A great and most valuable boot for any forester, professional and lay, and anyone interested in reforesting Scotland and other areas of Britain.

© 2011

Woodlands – Book Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro), RFA

Woodlands

by Oliver Rackham

480 pages, hardback, 23.6 x 15.6 x 4.8 cm

Published by Collins as a New edition March 4, 2010)

ISBN: 978-0007315147

‘Trees are wildlife just as deer or primroses are wildlife. Each species has its own agenda and its own interactions with human activities …’

Written by one of Britain’s best-known naturalists, Woodlands offers a fascinating new insight into the trees of the British landscape that have filled us with awe and inspiration throughout the centuries.

Looking at such diverse evidence as the woods used in buildings and ships, and how woodland has been portrayed in pictures and photographs, Rackham traces British woodland through the ages, from the evolution of wildwood, through man’s effect on the landscape, modern forestry and its legacy, and recent conservation efforts and their effects.

In his lively and thoroughly engaging style, Rackham explores woodlands and their history, through names, surveys, mapping and legal documents, archeology, photographs and works of art, thus offering an utterly compelling insight into British woodlands and how they have come to shape a national obsession.

Oliver Rackham has been a great champion for real woods and against the endless postwar conifer plantations – a campaign now largely won. Here he is writing not as a conservationist, but simply to share his prodigious knowledge of woods and trees with the reader.

Rackman, as far as I can ascertain, really knows his subject as regards to woodlands and woodland management and it is refreshing to see and be able to read material such as this.

When the Woodland Trust, however, waffles in their review of the book about restoration of ancient woods and creation of new woods is vital to creating a countryside which is more sympathetic to woodland wildlife, and which delivers benefits to society I would like them to actually show me the “ancient woodlands” that they are referring to.

There are no woodlands in Britain that have never been touched by the hand of man and it is the stupidity of statements such as that that currently may lose us 1,000s of coppice trees in the West Country that are about a millennium old.

Many misguided people have caused working of those woods to stop “ because of the need to restore those to ancient woodlands” not considering the fact that those woodlands had been working coppice woods for the last two thousand years or more.

We must work the woods once again and use them as a renewable resource and not as something just to sit there.

A younger growing tree is more beneficial as carbon sequester too that is an ancient one and with proper renewal such woodlands will reproduce for millenniums to come. Time everyone, and especially the self-proclaimed experts and advocates of the “ancient woodland” began to understand that.

Leaving dead wood on the forest floor is doing no one good either. The so-called habitat piles are – in reality – nothing but bad forestry practice and lead to fire ladders, harbor diseases and the decaying wood not just releases the CO2 the tree had stored during its lifetime but also the much more dangerous greenhouse gas of methane.

Much, much better to actually make the wood into something, especially by means of woodland crafts, from the bodger to other users. Even using that wood that cannot be used for crafts and industry as firewood is better than having it rot down out there in the forest.

Far too long have we allowed our woodland workers to die a slow death. It is time that we, once again, supported them and their products and also encouraged new life into the woodlands by bringing in young people to learn the crafts and skills that, in the not too distant future will once again be as needed as they were before the Second World War.

© 2011