Dalesfolk

Before it even got to the shop or stall where you chose it, it had probably undertaken a long sea voyage and then a bumpy ride on the back of an open truck. The poor thing was probably on its last trunk before you even popped it into its bucket.

As I know even less about arboreal health-care, I must thank for this important but perhaps arcane piece of information a man who does: Roy Lingard, the head forester at the Duke of Devonshire's Bolton Abbey Estate in Wharfedale.

For Roy has devoted the best years of his working life to trees, and, when it comes to your humble Norwegian Spruce, the most popular species of Christmas tree, he must be considered a world expert.

On a misty, wet December day overlooking a swollen River Wharfe, he waved his hand towards thousands of strong, glossy, healthy looking Norwegian spruces and explained: "Several million Christmas trees are imported into Britain every year. It is an important trade for Baltic countries, particularly those which were once behind the Iron Curtain and are now desperate for hard Western currency.

"They may have been cut as early as October so by the time they have been shipped and distributed around the UK, they are almost dead anyway. No wonder the needles begin to drop almost as soon as you put them in the house."

Now this may be considered something of a sales pitch for the Bolton Abbey plantations, which sell some 2,500 Christmas trees every year to customers who drive there, select a growing tree, have it cut to measure ... and get a free mince pie whilst the tree is being wrapped. But one senses that there is much more than business at stake here.

Roy winces as he tells this story: one suspects that he gets very angry about cruelty to trees.

Born in Burley-in-Wharfedale 46 years ago, he first went to work in an engineering factory near Leeds and hated it. Longing for the great outdoors, he then became a landscape gardener until Bolton Abbey took him on as a woodsman 14 years ago.

They sent him off to college to learn almost everything there is to know about trees and Roy has loved every minute of it ever since. And so he should, for the famous Strid Woods at Bolton Abbey are a hugely important resource for forestry research and development in a country which, regrettably, neglected its wonderful woods and forests almost to the point of extinction.

"Five thousand years ago, 74 per cent of Britain was covered in forest," he says, reeling off statistics which are, to anyone who loves our countryside, highly depressing. "By 1919, that was down to six per cent. It was only during World War One that the Government realised that Britain had a strategic shortfall in timber. That led to the creation of the Forestry Commission in 1919."

Since then, things have improved a little. The figure is back up to 10 per cent, although the Forestry Commission over the years took a lot of flak for covering thousands of acres of open countryside in single-species pine plantations.

But even that is improving: there is a new emphasis on re-planting native broadleaf trees like oak and ash, beech and lime, and even the statuesque Scot's Pine, which was once the most prevalent species on these islands.

This means that areas of ancient woodland like Strid Wood, which has one oak known to be 800 years old, have assumed great scientific importance as genetic pools for indigenous species which, in other areas, have been all but wiped out. Roy Lingard and his small team guard this vital inheritance like a tigress protecting her cubs.

So why the importance of the imported Norwegian Spruce, the best of which, ironically, now come for southern Germany?

"Forestry is, perhaps, the most long-term business ever undertaken by man," he says. "A Christmas tree can be sold at seven years of age, whereas a pine meant for building purposes takes 30 years.

"The great broad leaves, like oak and beech, can take 200 years or more and, here at Bolton Abbey at least, we plant them for amenity value rather than timber: they add so much to the value of the landscape.

"Such activity demands great investment for financial returns many years in the future. The Christmas trees are a valuable cash crop which we can bank on every year to help finance the rest of our programme."

One wonders how many other British businessmen think in this way but, in the meantime, how can you avoid those spruce needles in the carpet?

"If you get a freshly cut tree, there is no need to spray it with chemicals to stop the needles falling," says Roy. "When you get it home, make sure the cut at the bottom of the tree is clean and then keep it in a bucket full of water: an average sized tree will take up a litre a day. That way, the tree will last to Twelfth Night and still look green and gleaming."

So there you have it: treat your tree to a drink this Christmas and leave the vacuum cleaner in its cupboard. Cheers!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.