Season in Strathglass by John; Fowler Page B

splendid tree. In maturity, its trunk is tall and ramrod straight, the rough bark gouged by russet fissures. When felled, the heartwood shows a delicious cream and red in cross-section. Boat-builders love it.
    Dave selects his tree after careful scrutiny. ‘Saw's blunt,’ he says, seating himself on a stump with the chainsaw across his knees, sharpening the teeth with a small file. Dave, a freelance forester, says he has been cutting timber all his life, mainly in the south of England where he learned the trade from his father in the era of the horse, the axe and crosscut saw. For preference, he says, he likes to fell old hardwood trees like oak or beech. His busiest time ever was after the great gale of ’87 which tumbled the woodland trees wholesale.
    His strategy is to guide a falling tree between two neighbours so that their side branches will slow its descent and prevent it snapping when it hits the ground. Suppose it swings out of true? He gives me a wry look, shakes his head: ‘It won't.’
    He bends to the tree and the saw roars, spitting an arc of sawdust as the chain bites into the wood. With two swift applications, he cuts out a crescent of timber (he calls it a ‘dob’) then moves round the trunk to cut towards the newly made notch. As the saw slices deeper, his young assistant Neil hammers in a metal wedge behind it to prevent the chain jamming.
    Can this be dangerous? I edge towards a nearby forest giant, aiming to dodge behind it in case of need.
    I should have known better. There's a loud crack. (No one shouts ‘Timber!’) The tree teeters, tilts, tiptoes almost, then falls downwards with gathering speed, tearing through a mass of foliage to hit the ground with a thump. A slow shiver runs along the stem, snakelike, as if life is easing out of it as it comes to rest on the designated spot. Cut down in its prime – though a centenarian, it's a stripling in terms of its natural span.
    Taking up the saw again, Dave shears off the side branches and measures the length – more than 160 feet from butt to tip – from which he cuts a usable length of 70 feet. A big tree but not the biggest he has cut down in Plodda. ‘A fine stick,’ says he. All trees great or small are sticks to the forester.
    The Douglas firs extracted from Plodda are high-grade timber, much more valuable than the spruce trees harvested in their thousands. Can the wood survive the loss of so many fine specimens? It seems so. The fellers argue that since thinning creates life-giving light and space the forest will be enhanced rather than injured by the loss of a select few stems.
    Not everyone agrees. Dave says he was harangued last week by a woman, an American volunteer for Trees for Life who have a base nearby. She accused him of vandalism, of dealing mortal blows to the living wood. Every tree was sacred in her eyes. He gave the stock answer – he was creating space for new growth. A tree falls – as it must in nature, given time – light floods in, seeds germinate, new trees grow. He doesn't think she was convinced.
    Now the skidder lurches forward. The skidder is a huge tractor on fat wheels, each one taller than a man and laced with a web of chains to grip in the soft ground. Sitting high in the cab, Dave manoeuvres it into position then climbs down to help Neil sling a chain round the butt end of the tree and another felled earlier. He remounts and the machine moves off dragging the twin logs behind.
    The ground in Plodda wood is treacherous, wildly uneven, boggy in parts and thick with trees – a challenge to the driver dragging six tons of lively timber behind him. The skidder rears and plunges, the logs buck and ply, gouging the soil and ripping through the undergrowth, smashing small timber en route to the roadside pick-up point. Down it plunges into the green chasm of a ravine, churning soil into a brown sludge where a small burn flows, barely visible in its mossy