The cultivation, maintenance and rational exploitation of the forests was only implemented at the beginning of the 20th century by a few large owners in the Double and Landais forests.
Until then, the forest provided spontaneous resources to the populations: heather for bedding, occasional woodland or timber and firewood, grazing for animals and fruits of the forest.
Created at the beginning of the 20th century, the chiefdom of the Eaux et Forêts de Périgueux, the departmental nursery of the Vauclaire estate in Ménesplet and the creation of a forestry union, encouraged rational management, reforestation with maritime pines and the practice of gemmaging.
Until the introduction of the use of the circular sawmill from the 1920s in the valley’s countryside, pitsawyers supplied carpenters and joiners with timber.
Illustrations :
– Postcard of a mushroom picker in Périgord in the 1910s. (Collection Henri Brives)
– Postcard of the pine forest of the Domaine du Fraysse near Vergt (Dordogne) with its professional school of horticulture, agriculture and orphanage (Archives Départementales de la Dordogne, 2 Fi 2172)
– Photograph of logging work in the Double forest in Saint Étienne de Puycorbier in the 1950s (Private Collection).
– Postcard of the Issac sawmill installed near the Mussidan-Bergerac railway line in the 1920s. (Escarment Collection)
– Sketch of pit sawyers 0.0681 for illustration
– Postcard of a truffle grower leading his sow and piglets to harvest truffles in the 1930s in Périgord. Museum André Voulgre
– Video with the portrait of the pit sawyer, 1989, by Pascal Magontier