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Thanks Eddy - checked the poles, none of which have any signs on but several have BT carved in to them with what look like dates. I think that's clear enough. Alec

Worth trying to work out how much you have. Say 2 tons/tree if you are taking the wood? If so you will have a few hundred tons. Roughly 4 bulk loads to the hundred tons so it's probably worth asking the relevant carriers if they are buying in your area at the moment. Demand and price seem to be very patchy. The other option would be to stack it until next winter and use it as a mulch around the trees - no direct return but good for weed suppression, water retention and improving soil structure. Alec

I can offer you one in North Essex. If it helps, drop me a PM. Alec

I agree that piece is almost certainly just rested on friction pads, however if you really needed to fix it down there are some silicone adhesives which have a refractive index matched to glass which would do it. They would have enough give to cope with movement in the wood and would be pretty much invisible. We did some work a couple of years back for the new medieval gallery at the V&A which was installing some very large sheets of glass bonded to onyx and they had some failures due to local stress concentration in the fixings. The adhesive didn't fail and was to all intents and purposes invisible. Alec

How many days per week were you paying - was it a 5 or 6 day week and were there any days at college, if so did you pay them for these? This makes a big difference - our apprentices are on 5 day working weeks but spend two days a week at college. If we paid £30/day but only for the days on our site they would be earning £90/wk so working from your figures they would have £30/wk to live on after rent. Food would be £35 so they are already in debt before they start, let alone travel or clothing. At the other end of the scale, fully paid at 6 days per week would be £180 which you could cover all costs with comfortably. What do you reckon their travel costs would be - could you rent in a location where you could walk to your yard and to college, or would you expect them to get themselves to the job site - if so what range (could they cycle it or would a car be essential?) Where we are there is a site bus to and from the nearest large town, which is also where the college is. It costs a pound each way (3days/wk) so travel is around £300/yr. If you had to get the public bus the same distance it would be £3.50 each way so travel would be around £1000/yr. The difference between these obviously makes a huge difference when you are talking about living near the margins. FWIW, we put our successful apprentices onto proper employment contract rates if they pass their second year. They can then reasonably expect promotion after around another 3yrs if they do a good job, which will give them a wage of around £100/day. They know this up front, which is a good incentive to stay. By this stage, they earn this for us anyway and employing someone equivalent would cost the same so it's reasonable. We look on it more that they have been trained to fit what we want than that they owe us. We have quite a good retention rate overall. Alec

This is true, to a point, but where does he live and how much does it cost him (inc. food etc)? If you go down the academic route there are student loans - yes you have to pay them back but at least they cover the short-term living costs. If you aren't subsidised by your parents, you don't have the luxury of doing something you enjoy - sometimes you just have to do what pays the bills. You can't just not eat or live anywhere for a few years A lot depends on how employers view apprenticeships - is it education or is it employment? There seems to be a prevailing view that it is education which the employer is providing and hence the apprentice 'owes them'. This is hardly likely to lead to a working environment which the apprentice wants to stay in - not surprising they move on. Employers then seem to feel this is somehow disloyal, but if it has been treated as training, why wouldn't they move at the end of the training period? Some simple calculations - £4/hr for 8hr days, 5days/wk = £160/wk = £8320 annual. Some current costs (derived from the students I employ): Round here, a basic single room in a shared house is £350/month = £4200 annual. Bills will be extra, usually around £50/month = £600 annual. Food can be done (just, but I challenge you to do it!) on £5/day = £1825 annual. So basic costs £6625 annual. This leaves £1625 annual for travel (you can only cut this to zero if you live in walking distance of both work and college), clothing, PPE etc and assumes you have absolutely zero social life. I lived like this for a year once when I was a student (figures were somewhat different in those days and I didn't have the option of either a grant or a student loan). Believe me, it is not healthy, either mentally or physically. My view is that if you want the best, you have to offer the most attractive package. If that means you are prepared to pay a reasonable wage and offer training on top then you can have the pick of the apprentices and they are likely to carry on to become a good employee. If you feel that they owe you so you can give them less, they treat it as a period of training and then move on. If you take a negative attitude towards them, either by keeping on about how much worse they are than you at the job, or focussing on their weaknesses rather than their strengths, or simply treating them as inferior and giving them only the worst of the jobs, they may take it as part of the role but will move on to something better the first chance they get. The above has been borne out by my own experience - I have taken on about 15 students and apprentices over the past 8yrs and employed six of them (didn't want to employ three, four others didn't want to be employed but delivered good service while they were with me, the other two I didn't have the need for at the end of their fixed term). I treat them as employees, whose contribution is as valuable as anyone else's, and pay them a good wage accordingly. I give them as much responsibility as I think they can handle given their experience and tend to push this early in their career. Only one has let me down and we had a polite but frank discussion which he found uncomfortable, and then he chose to move on. For me, treating people professionally and trying to understand what is likely to be both viable and motivational has got good results. Alec edit. I think Eddy_t has just expressed the same view but rather more succinctly!

Hmmm - doesn't look to be doing the normal run away and hide routine, more like full on going for you! Alec

Thanks all for the comments - I'll have to figure how to distinguish abc cables from BT but otherwise sounds like I should be fine - maintaining 2m wouldn't be a problem anyway. I should perhaps have made it clearer - at the moment there is no hedge or fence whatsoever - field is completely open to an A-road, which is just inviting nomadic types to drive straight on. I want to plant up a hedge, which will be laid in due course, but would like to plant it with some standards of my choice, specifically some disease resistant elm which I have been propagating for the purpose. No problem getting the height to be well clear of the lines and my grandchildren should have a really majestic view if it works. Alec

Agree entirely. Balsam is an annual with a very weak root system, so it's easy to pull. So long as it doesn't set seed, it is easily eradicated. The problem comes in natural areas which are not maintained. Rabbit is best stewed Alec

Are you a dwarf? Are you a masochist? If the answer is no to both of the above then believe me, people are doing you a favour by -not- giving you an Allen Scythe. Geoff gave me his Allen Scythe, and I use it, but I am a masochist. Alec

An aside, but this seems like an appropriate thread: We have bought the field next to us, which adjoins roads on two sides and has lines running along the edge (I think they are phone lines as they are only single line - I will be checking this before doing anything) I want to hedge it properly but would ideally leave some standards in along the length. Is there anything fundamentally stopping me from doing this, particularly if they are phone lines - the thinking is to run them up high enough to the crown that there are no side branches until clear above the lines. Alec

Sadly my apprentice (different industry) left a few weeks back. Nothing we did, or could have done - he always wanted to join the Navy but they turned him down on eyesight grounds, but suddenly decided to make him an offer which he understandably took. There are several factors which are important I think, most of which have been covered by Andy, Amy and Felixthelogchopper - mutual respect probably being the key one (I have seen a lot of engineering doctorate students whose first aim is to leave their placement, rather than get a job there at the end, on account of the treatment they have received, then talking to the employer they make negative comments about the commitment of the student). One additional point though - this is a stage where people are finding out what they want to do with their lives. Some have a burning desire to do something, only to try it and find they don't like it. Others drift into something and find it is really for them and stay forever. Then there are the ones who really don't have a clue and were never going to get there anyway. It is very hard to pick the winners out early. One thing we have done is to talk to the local colleges early (about this time of year) and allow people to apply - then down-select the ones who are promising for interview and offer a small number a week's work experience, following which they can decide if it is for them. This has helped weed out a few who really weren't up to it or interested enough, and a couple who thought it was what they wanted and found it wasn't. Alec

Hi David, This would be a consequence of my suggested approach, but not the objective. The foliage looks to be a good colour, with good sized leaves. Although the exposed area within the carpark is small, it is comparable to the canopy and although it has been compressed by cars driving over it etc I am presuming (and I acknowledge this to be a presumption) that the desire lines will be more likely to be over the hard standing, for both car and foot traffic, so the damage may not be that great. The above suggests to me that the tree is not in need of desperately urgent intervention to prevent imminent death. As such, cardboard mulch to suppress the weeds and encourage the worms to improve the soil structure would probably be sufficient to keep the root system going. Again, counter to 'arb' practice, I might be inclined to apply some general purpose balanced fertiliser - Growmore or blood, fish and bone at about 4oz (one good handful) per square yard. This is because extension growth is not fantastic and being a fruiting tree will have taken specific elements out of the soil in a way that a non-fruiting tree won't. This variety has not developed through natural selection - it will have been specifically selected to produce heavy, reliable crops of much larger fruit than the original wild form, ie the fruit mass will be significantly higher, so will deplete the soil of specific nutrients much more rapidly as a consequence. There are three zones of foliage growth to consider - suckers from the roots, low level epicormic growth on the trunk and 'top growth' above the clear trunk height. I would definitely remove the suckers because, unlike a seed-grown tree, they are not genetically the same. 'Free stock' (ie seedling grown, for pear or coincidentally crab for apples) were grown by planting out rows of seeds and selecting the vigorous seedlings, whereas selections for fruit tend to be weaker. As such, the suckers, if left, will out-complete the existing tree which may accelerate its demise, with consequent loss of habitat etc. I acknowledge that a very thorough management programme of keeping them cut out before they reach a certain size could work but I suspect it is more likely they will get out of hand, leading to a twiggy mess and a dead stump. It would also, in theory, be possible to select one to develop as a replacement trunk, but this would defeat the object in my view (see end). Epicormic on the trunk - fairly harmless but has a tendency to get rather dense if all left - being under the canopy its natural growth will be straight up, which will lead to a dense mass of weakly attached material on a compromised base - which loses first, the attachment or the whole lot? Top growth - I would treat as above. This is a tree which, in its prime, would have been quite capable of reaching 40' in height. Keeping it down to 15-20' will keep it vigorous enough and match the available root zone to the canopy. The overriding premise though is that the management of fruit trees -as- fruit trees had advantages in preserving them. It's rather like pollarding at Burnham Beeches or in the Basque, in that the tree is not a natural form but the management technique used has created a specific environment and the coincidental effect of keeping the main structure going indefinitely - certainly much longer than a maiden form would. I will take some photos tomorrow at Mum's place of some heavily compromised apples on Paradise stock, which passed their commercial life over 60yrs ago and yet with regular management should outlive me. Treating fruit trees as such is also part of the cultural reason for the tree to 'be'. There are other management techniques which may work equally well, but I prefer to avoid them as they don't fit with the tree's purpose. Sorry, not much about mulching in there. I'll take some nice pictures of mulching too! Alec

I wouldn't claim anything like David's level of knowledge, but do have some knowledge of aged fruit trees. It's hard to get an absolute sense of scale on that, but it looks to be about a foot to 15" across? The leaves around the base look like pear - this would put it on pear rootstock, which used to be the norm for standard grown trees (6' of clear trunk before the branches). Coincidentally, these want removing on a regular basis as they are not the same variety as the tree itself - break them out with the 'heel' if you can (a sharp knock downwards), otherwise cut them off as low as possible, preferably underground. I use a mattock for this. If it is on pear stock and around 15" across then it is probably around 100yrs old, depending on growing conditions locally. It may well be a perry variety. I would be inclined to keep a clear trunk to a height, to keep it looking like a fruit tree - probably somewhere between 4' and 6'. Despite the damage, growth looks pretty good, so I would look to keep and develop a framework of branches, spaced evenly round the tree to avoid imbalance, and kept well thinned out to avoid wind resistance. I would then let laterals grow off the framework branches and cut some of these back each year, to the lowest side-branch (closest to the framework branch) or if nothing is available then cut well back to encourage lower growth and cut out the following year. I wouldn't worry too much about small pruning wounds - the structural wood is gone anyway, so I would use drop-crotch pruning where necessary to keep the structure small. The above is a method known as renewal pruning and can keep aged fruit trees going indefinitely. It keeps them very thin and making regular growth, so they don't build up wind resistance and maintain some vigour. It has quite a lot in common with 'proper' old fashioned pollarding in that respect. With regard to the mulch, I would be inclined to rake it aside and stick some cardboard down first if you can, then put the mulch back. Cardboard suppresses the weeds, mulch keeps the moisture in and stops the cardboard blowing away. Also the worms eat the glue and help aerate the soil in the process. Alec

Several possible reasons spring to mind: someone can't count, someone measured around the bar and didn't realise that you need the slight play to get the chain over the sprocket, or it could be that they were made up for an older model with an outboard clutch, which can change the location of the bar mount relative to the axis of the sprocket (on a long bar, a chain which runs at midpoint on the tensioner on an 070 is too slack to run on an 076 for example). Either way, Rob has the solution! Alec

I was going to ask about that - excellent news as there is a real shortage of good habitat for owls nests. Alec

2ft is an excellent size - 2ft-2ft6 is my preferred diameter. Big enough for a good yield without curving off too much at the top, but small enough that you can move the bits. Much bigger than that and I would quarter if for preference. Alec

I don't actually use either of these - the mill pushes the sawdust out of the way and I haven't yet milled where I have had to worry about sawdust clearup. Alec

The combined list suggested looks good. If you are ordering several ripping chains, I suggest you get an Oregon and a Granberg for the 36" bar as a starter and compare them. You can then decide on what you like going forward. The 47" bar that the saw comes with is hard nosed. This isn't ideal for milling, although it isn't impossible. They seem to work better with older, low revs/high torque saws. If you find you enjoy it you will probably do better to stick with the 36" bar for now and buy a long sprocket-nosed bar at some point. I also suggest having an axe, a small chainsaw, a mallet and chisel and a claw hammer to hand - the first two are to address sticking out bits and areas which are just too wide to get the mill through, the rest is to deal with metalwork. Alec

I have a beam which needs to have a plate inserted in it. The beam is box heart. Box heart tends to open up round in a wedge, ie you cut a slot but the top gets wider than the bottom. If you don't let it, splits develop somewhere else (it would be different if it was fully seasoned). I cut the slot as early as possible, as narrow as possible, let the thing open up, which with a deep cut in like this makes seasoning much quicker, and when I am ready to insert the plate I will also add a wedge, and plane the sides up to square again. The beam has developed no splits anywhere else. Alec

The dead one is indicative - particularly worth keeping an eye out for dying ones in hedgerows in the area as that way the odds of a beetle missing out one particular tree are pretty small. Softwood and hardwood. When a shoot is growing, it starts off soft and then hardens, usually going from green to typical bark colour in the process. Softwood cuttings are taken before the shoots harden, hardwood afterwards. Some species root more easily when the stem is still immature, others (usually the difficult species) root so slowly that they rely on the 'stick' to survive for a long time, in which instance hardwood cuttings often work better. Sometimes the 'heel' (bit where it breaks away from the main stem) is easier to get to disrupt the cells to form roots but with elm I haven't found much difference. I have a similar plan to you - I am propagating away and will plant as many trees over about a 10 mile area as I can find homes for. My aim is to get a high enough concentration of surviving trees that they are within pollination distance to create a self-sustaining population which will then hopefully spread wider. It won't be timber for me, but some of it may be good timber for someone and I like the trees anyway, despite the old rhyme: Elm hateth man and waiteth... Alec

Yes, it's elm. If others in the area typically die off as soon as they reach around 5" or so diameter then there is a reasonable chance these ones are resilient (some are). Supposedly the best way to do cuttings from elm is to take softwood cuttings in the last week of June, take the lower leaves off, cut the upper leaves to about half their length, use hormone rooting compound and pot them in a 50:50 potting compost:sharp sand mix, keep moist and bag up in a clear plastic bag. Once the leaves naturally drop, take the bag off and then any which leaf out next spring are OK. In practice, I have had a very poor success rate with the above on elm (I am propagating the survivors in this area, of which I know of 10 big trees) and have had much more luck with hardwood cuttings taken just as the buds start to swell, ie you have just missed it for this year. Procedure is otherwise as above, but not worrying about the plastic bag. Alec

How much could you sell it for relative to what you are being offered it for? You need a certain amount of cash 'float' available - for fixing the landy etc (face it, it's a landy, it -will- break down!) but beyond that, any spare cash is earning you nothing sat in the bank, so if you have opportunities to make it work harder for you they can often be worth taking. If you could sell it and pretty much get your money back with only a minimal loss at worst, and you can think of ways in which you could either market the capability, or likely scenarios where you will be asked alongside what you are currently doing, it may well be worth the investment. Only other thing is, assuming it's secondhand, do you know what you are looking at well enough to know that you are not buying a dog? If so, great, if not, is there anyone else you can ask who would know what they are looking at and can offer impartial advice? Alec

I've got a couple that fit this description. One is about 52", the other about 20", both hard nose. Not quite sure of the era but I would guess late '70s/early '80s as the paint is orange rather than red. Alec