190 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ers was a timber merchant from Landes. The Minister 

 of Agriculture agreed to send his Inspector General of 

 Forests to look into the troubles. 



The Inspector General and a party of French forest 

 officers arrived at Pontenx to visit the American opera- 

 tions. They went over the groimd carefully, but found 

 no evidences of ruthless devastation. They found that 

 fire had been carefully controlled, that the methods of 

 cutting the forest followed absolutely those emjiloyd l)y 

 the French. They were much interested in the work of 

 driving the Courant River, and especially in the scheme 



camps ; the kitchen was reached just in time to see the 

 cook take a big batch of fine brown cookies from the 

 oven ; the hot cookies were greatly enjoyed, for such 

 things were then forbidden in French civil life. A loaf 

 of white bread, practically unknown in France for three 

 years, w^as given to the Inspector General ; this was a 

 most acceptable gift and was very pleasantly received. 

 After this visit no more complaints of American methods 

 were heard. 



The French sawmills, several of which were leased or 

 bought for American use during the first few months 



CA.S'.M, A.\D CAU BKI.\(JING LOGS ll' TO TIIK HOIST INTO THE AU R K I l.H A X MILL OF THE 20th E.XGINKKRS .NEAR PO.NTENX, 



LANDES, FRANCE 



of drying out liic trees in advance, for ai)i)arently the 

 I)ractice of driving loose logs was unknown in the 

 streams of France. The larger mills were cutting at a 

 rate astonishing to the I-Vench, for they were even 

 greatly exceeding the regiment's own expectations. The 

 mechanical ingenuity, the ])ower, and the rapidity with 

 which logs were reduced to lumber was admired by the 

 I'rench. They shrugged their shoulders, however, at the 

 thick circular saws, for it gave them real pain to see so 

 much of their precious wood going into sawdust ; a few 

 moments, later, fortunately, their faces brightened wlicn 

 they saw the sawdust automatically fed into the "dutch 

 ovens" as fuel, for the French are accustomed to drive 

 their sawmills by power secured from the' valuable si '- 

 and edgings while the sawdust is generally a total In-,. 

 A little later the party was shown through one of dur 



after the regiment reached France, were objects of con- 

 si(leral)le curiosity to .Vniericans. .Mthou^h a few of 

 these mills arc housed in permanent brick buildings in 

 connection with turjjentine stills, the typical mill of the 

 region was a very ])ortable affair readily moved about 

 from one small cutting area to another. Usually the 

 main saw. which is frecjuently the only saw, is a very 

 thin, narrow band saw; sometimes a thin circular saw is 

 used instead. The short logs, ten feet or less in length. 

 are ])laced by hand on the light saw carriage; a crank 

 tunic-(l by liand feeds the log against the'''saw» 'The lum- 

 ber is edged un a very small, light carriage, vvhich runs 

 past the oppgj^te side of the band saw fi'bm that on 

 which the log is sawn ; the l)oard is held down on the 

 edger carriage by a hook at one end and by the hand 

 of the operator at the other, (jenerally no trimming is 



