COST OF MOUNTAIN LOGGING IN WEST VIRGINIA. 

 By Henry H. Farquhar. 



The following data, designed to give the costs of setting up and 

 running a team camp, with brief descriptions of the methods of 

 logging employed, in the Allegheny Mountain region, were gath- 

 ered in the fall of 1907 while working in a camp of the Otter 

 Creek Boom and Lumber Company, of Hambleton, West Virginia. 



This is one of the largest lumber companies in the State, using 

 one band and one circular saw and sawing about ninety thousand 

 feet per day. A planing and a lath mill are under the same roof. 

 The logs are furnished by six contractors. 



Before selecting the particular camp for the study, inquiry was 

 made as to the largest and most up-to-date, and the following de- 

 scriptions and figures may be taken as typical of the team logging 

 in this (the Spruce-Hemlock) type, throughout the region. 



The logging for the Otter Creek Boom and Lumber Company 

 is all done by contract. The camp from which these figures were 

 taken is situated about twenty miles southwest of Hambleton, the 

 contractor being Grant Dickson. Of the daily output of the com- 

 pany's mill of ninety-thousand feet, over forty thousand feet are 

 furnished by this camp, the remainder being supplied by five other 

 contractors. 



The region and woods will first be described, the contract, the 

 cost of setting up camp, then the methods of logging, wages and 

 board, and finally the summary of the whole. 



The; Woods. 



Lying on the western slopes of the Southern Appalachians, the 

 region has the usual rugged mountain topography. A narrow- 

 gauged railroad winds in and out along the bed of a small stream, 

 between the high mountains on both sides, rising from Hambleton, 

 at an elevation above sea level of 1,700 feet, up to Dickson's camp, 

 which is about 3,300 feet, or a rise of 1,600 feet in twenty miles. 

 At frequent intervals along this road are seen great bald moun- 

 tains, entirely destitute of trees, with only burnt and blackened 



