578 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Bark Peelers at Work. 



the peelers have stripped the logs in the background and are ready to attack the big log in the 

 foreground. in the early days of the industry these logs and slash were left in the woods to rot. 



finest trunks by thousands. It was not 

 unusual for extensive tracts to be 

 stripped of hemlock timber without a 

 single log going to sawmills, a cord to 

 pulp mills, or even a railroad tie saved 

 from the wreck. The peeled trunks lay 

 criss-crossed upon hundreds of acres, 

 after the bark was sledded down (he 

 tote roads to the railway spur to be 

 loaded on gondolas for the tannery. 

 Fire always followed and completed the 

 desolation; for the immense tangle of 

 tops and trunks furnished so much fuel 

 to the flames that any trees which may 

 have been left standing were killed, root 

 and branch. 



Fortunately, that destructive system 

 is practiced no longer ; for the logs are 

 more valuable than the bark, and are 

 removed before the fire season arrives. 

 The value of the annual harvest of hem- 

 lock bark is between six and seven mil- 

 lion dollars. It weighs about 700,000 

 tons. The production in the leading 

 States is : Pennsylvania. 2.")4,434 tons ; 

 Wisconsin, 12o,T6;3 tons; Michigan, s,*^,- 



OGl tons; West Virginia, TT.GGl tons; 

 New York, 7(3,447 tons; Massachusetts, 

 26,889 tons. 



It should be explained that the fore- 

 going figures represent the quantity of 

 bark used in the States named, which is 

 not necessarily the amount actually 

 peeled in those States ; but tanneries are 

 usually located in the regions of chief 

 supply, because it is more economical to 

 build tanneries near the bark than to 

 ship the bark to distant tanneries. 



REGROWTH IS SLOW^ 



Hemlock forests rate low in their 

 ability to reproduce. The woodsman's 

 axe can destroy the hemlock forest 

 more speedily and more completely than 

 in the case of any other important tim- 

 ber. It is because seedlings must have 

 abundant shade, or the}- will perish. 

 When the sunlight is let in. by the fell- 

 ing of the trees, the seedlings dry up 

 tMid die. That is one of the reasons 

 why young stands of this timber are 

 not coming on where the old have been 



