196 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
floated to its destination, while the sawn is placed on barges. 
The logs are made up into rafts, each raft consisting of about 
fifty stems, in eight sections, a section having six or seven logs 
abreast, which are kept together by a piece of wood nailed across 
the ends. ‘The sections are attached to each other by willow or 
birch withes, which are fastened to a stout peg driven into the 
end of the stems. Three men will navigate a raft 250 or 300 feet 
in length, a horse usually assisting in towing on the canals. The 
men wear spikes strapped on to the bottoms of their boots to pre- 
vent them from slipping on the wet wood, and work the raft with 
long poles, with sharp hooks at the end for sticking into a stem 
when necessary. In going through the locks the sections must be 
disconnected, although the whole raft can be accommodated when 
they are abreast. The cost of this method of transport is reckoned 
at something like one farthing per ton per kilometre, or a little over 
1}d. per four miles. 
All the principal saw-mills stand on the banks of these canals 
and rivers, and have large timber docks leading off the main stream 
for the reception of the timber. From these docks the wood is 
dragged out as required, by simply passing a chain round two or 
three stems, and connecting it with one from the machinery, which 
drags them up a sloping gangway to a cross-cutting machine. After 
being cross-cut they are rolled right and left on to timber stagings, 
thence they are taken up into the mill by a small trolley drawn by 
the machinery. The sawn wood is taken out at the opposite side 
of the mill, and stacked up into piles in the yard to remain until 
wanted. ‘Tram-lines lead from these yards to the water’s edge, 
where the deals, battens, etc., are loaded on the barges for further 
transit. Immense quantities of timber can be seen in the vicinity 
of these mills, wherever a wide part of the stream or natural lake 
offers facilities for being utilised as a depot; the grass and weeds 
growing on the rafts bearing testimony of a long sojourn in the 
water. 
On drawing a comparison between the condition of the North 
German pine forests and that of Scots fir woods in Scotland, two 
main features strike one at once, and these are the crowded con- 
dition of the former during the earlier stages of growth, and the 
open and thin stocking in the later periods, being almost exactly 
the reverse of what is usually found in the case of the latter. In 
Scotland the custom prevails of thinning freely during the first 
thirty or forty years, and little or not at all afterwards, whereby 
