Welsh Journals

TYCANOL WOOD INTRODUCTION On maps of Tycanol Farm (SN 092368) going back over the last two centuries, the wood is a permanent feature. It is mainly of Oak. Running up to the top of the wood there is a progressive stunting and, at the limit, there are specimens that are mature, but very gnarled and twisted and only about six feet high. On the more sheltered lower slopes, with greater soil depth, the Oaks can achieve quite impressive proportions, but in the wood all large trees were felled in the 1914-18 war, and a large number of secondaries have grown from the stumps. This felling also allowed the incursion of Hazels and a few Beeches and Sycamores. Alders are established along the streams. The ground is very rocky, and with areas that are very badly drained and boggy. When the rabbits were practically wiped out in 1953-54, brambles and seedlings of various trees started to establish themselves. The wood was unfenced, and practically unstocked until 1958. Thereafter, it was fenced, and cattle up to 80 in number were wintered in it. A dozen or so sows were also allowed free range. Sheep were grazed at periods during the late summer and autumn, but could not be left in after this because of the brambles, which caught their fleeces. In 1972 the farming pattern changed. Sheep in large numbers have access to the wood in the summer and autumn, but not during the winter. Cattle are kept and fed as before, during the winter, and periodically graze it at other seasons. As a result of this type of management, which has not involved the application of artificial fertilisers, except for one application of slag in 1958, where a tractor could apply it, the fertility has been increased only by the feeding of stock, which have then manured the area with their droppings. The brambles and seedlings have disappeared, and the cattle tend to tread out rushy types of growth in the boggy patches. It is unlikely that this pattern will change within the forseeable future; no schemes for drainage or fertiliser application, or ploughing, chemical or physical, are being contemplated. Tycanol Farm, Brynberian, Crymych, Pembs. O. F. CONRAN