Cost of Mountain Logging. 259 



pairing, requiring the labor of about sixteen men, the cost amounts 

 to 87 cents per thousand. 



Roading and Swamping : Per M. 



1 Buck Swamper a $40 per month $0.04 



10 Swampers " 340 " " .34 



4 Road men " 160 " " .16 



1 Blaster " 40 " " .04 



16 men at 60c board per day .29 



.87 



Sawing. — Three saws are usually run, except from the first of 

 May until the first of August, when only the hemlock is cut and 

 the bark peeled, during which time contracts are let to from 

 twenty to thirty men. During the rest of the year the sawyers 

 first go through the woods, cutting what spruce and hemlock has 

 been left by the bark peelers, afterwards going over again and 

 taking the hardwoods. This is done to avoid loss through logs 

 splitting and breaking if they are felled across each other. 



Everything ten inches on the stump, and any straight log twelve 

 feet long that will measure eight inches in diameter at the small 

 end, is cut. In the case of pulp wood sticks, the limit is four 

 inches at the small end. Stumps are cut as low as possible, 

 averaging about twenty inches. Two men with a chopper who 

 goes ahead selecting the trees, makes the undercut and afterwards 

 fixes the lengths of the logs, and the two knotbumpers or limbers 

 who cut off the limbs from the logs and nose or point them, make 

 a crew, which saws from fifteen to twenty thousand feet per day, 

 the spruce and hemlock averaging 4.5 logs to the thousand board 

 feet. 



No care is exercised in the felling of the timber so as to prevent 

 injury to the young growth, the only object being to get it in the 

 best possible position for skidding. As many as possible of the 

 trees are felled across or alongside of the main stem of the road. 



The spruce and hemlock trees will often cut seventy-five to 

 eighty-five feet, linear measure, of merchantable logs each. The 

 woods furnish ideal fifty-foot spruce and hemlock bridge timbers, 

 as straight as a line and free from branches for this whole length. 

 These sticks must square 15 by 9 inches, which requires that they 

 be not less than 18 inches in diameter at the small end. After this 



