I 82 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



24. The Bin Wood, Aberdeenshire. 1 



The Bin Wood, Huntly — one of the most noted "ripe " woods 

 in Scotland during the war — was the subject of a thoroughly 

 practical address by Mr John Rule, forester there to the Duke 

 of Richmond and Gordon, to the members of the Aberdeen 

 Branch of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, last year. 

 Mr A. Forbes Irvine of Drum, the president, was in the chair. 



The Bin Wood, Mr Rule stated, covered two distinct hills, 

 800 and 1037 feet high respectively, 2258 imperial acres in 

 extent, and to go round it one would have to travel n miles 

 over rough ground. The Bin Wood had not been cut before its 

 time, like many of the woods throughout the length and breadth 

 of the country, but at the mature age of eighty years. It had 

 been a great asset to the nation in the part it had taken in the 

 great war. The planter of eighty years ago never thought his 

 seedlings would ultimately be timbering the trenches in a world 

 conflict. What could a bleak, rocky moor have done in such an 

 emergency? The Bin Wood's uses to the locality had been 

 many and varied in affording shelter and amenity, supplying 

 wood for all the needs of a wide agricultural district, its 

 by-products, such as brushwood and " rosity roots," having 

 been a godsend to the people of the district, and especially to 

 the poor of the town of Huntly. The wood had always been 

 a happy hunting ground for the "birn wife " and the tinker. 



But by far the greatest benefit of the Bin had been the 

 lucrative employment it afforded to many people. This might 

 be compared with the state of matters had it been allowed to 

 remain unplanted. Including planters, at least twenty men, on 

 an average, had, in one way or another, found regular employ- 

 ment during the last eighty years. Replanting had been carried 

 on for the last fifteen years, and already parts of the rugged hill 

 were beginning to have quite a wooded appearance. He had 

 endeavoured to show how a bleak, rocky moor could be turned 

 to good account for all concerned, and it was the country's 

 saddest mistake that there were not more Bin Woods in it. 



In the discussion that followed, Mr John Michie, M.V.O., 

 formerly forester and factor to the King on the Balmoral 



1 This summary is taken from the Aberdeen Journal for 15th December 

 1919. 



