372 LOGGING 



(the surveyor-general in Minnesota, in most other states the 

 County Clerk of the county in which the head office is located) 

 brands constitute trademarks of the individuals registering them, 

 and their rights to the timber so marked are fully protected by 

 law. 



The obliteration or removal of brands or bark marks ("de- 

 horning") is regarded as a felony in most states. The highest 

 courts of some states ^ hold where logs are presumptively marked 

 according to law and are floated down a stream, that if the 

 owners annually endeavor to recover those that sink and 

 become imbedded in the stream, such logs cannot be regarded 

 as lost or abandoned property whether the marks are distinguish- 

 able or not. 



Loggers, therefore, do not lose their property rights in lost 

 logs if originally they were properly marked by the owner, and 

 he used due diligence each year to recover them. On the other 

 hand, according to the Supreme Court of Minnesota,- logs in 

 water are abandoned when not in the possession of or under the 

 control of any person, and which have no distinctive mark or 

 marks on them that have been recorded with the proper officials. 

 Such logs are the property of the person who collects them and 

 causes them to be marked. These logs are known as "prize" 

 logs and on union drives they are divided in rotation, as they pass 

 the sorting gap, among the loggers having timber in the stream. 

 Where the drive is conducted by a boom company all prize logs 

 caught in the booms are held as the property of the company and 

 sold at auction to the highest bidder. 



B. SPECIES THAT WILL FLOAT 



Although the majority of species indigenous to the United 

 States will float to some extent, yet many of them cannot be 

 transported successfully by water. The coniferous woods are 



1 See Whitman vs. Muskegon Log Lifting and Operating Co. Supreme Court 

 of Michigan, ii6 Northwestern 614. 



2 See Astell vs. McCuish. Supreme Court of Michigan, 124 Northwestern Re- 

 porter 458. 



