Technics of Forestry. 



By J. CHARLES KING. 

 No. II. 



{Continued from page 393.) 



In forestry, as in other handicrafts, Science, the handmaiden of Toil, 

 investigates, fashions, forges, and formulates the tools and methods 

 the foresters use, now, as it did centuries ago, be the tools of stone, 

 bronze, steel, or the electric wire ; science has to be subordinated to 

 the limits of muscular action in the fitness of its diverse application 

 in aiding technical aptitude of hand, eye, or brain. 



The tools of the wood-hewers of former tim-es have been found to 

 differ but little from some in use now, and in the matter of simple 

 form, some display a fitness which commends itself to workers before 

 some of the misshapen fanciful ones made by the gross, by workmen 

 who are obviously ignorant of their use, for employers who are equally 

 ignorant and indifferent to everything but the profit upon their sale. 

 Thus we see that science ceases to be sense the moment it deviates 

 from fitness of application in aiding muscular action or technical 

 effort. 



The import of these remarks will be obvious to many who use bills, 

 saws, and axes for felling and lopping timber, and the illustrations 

 of such tools for hard close-grained timber will be thought strange 

 by some woodwards who have been accustomed to soft wood tools 

 only, which will be illustrated in due course, though the diversity of 

 some may be but slight. 



By reference to the illustrations in the October number of the 

 Journal of Forestry the " bill " is shown to be made of one piece of 

 steel, the " haft " end being rolled up into an open pipe or socket, 

 1 inch inside diameter, and Ih inch long at the part that is welded 

 together; the action of forming a tube out of the flat surface of a blade 

 makes a part of it in front of the socket for about 1| inch form a 

 hollow buloed out of the blade, into Nvhich the handle fits throunh the 

 socket. Here at once is a passing illustration of the fitness of a tool 

 in form for muscular effort ; looking at the back of the " bill," 

 No. 2, that part which forms the semi-elliptical hollow into which 

 the wooden handle is socketed exactly fits the fork of the thumb and 

 finger of the right hand when the bill is held at that part, as it is for 

 many of the lighter operations of woodwork, barking, skimming 



