424 LOGGING 



B. NORTHEAST 



Period of Logging. — Operations are usually confined to a 

 period of from twenty-six to thirty-two weeks, beginning in the 

 late summer and closing during the early spring. Where rail- 

 road transport is used summer logging is practiced. 



Labor. — The labor is composed chiefly of French Canadians 

 and Europeans. The men are generally employed by the month 

 and are furnished board and lodging. The average camp crew 

 consists of about sixty men. 



Camps. — The buildings usually are log structures which house 

 from fifty to sixty men, and from twenty-five to forty horses. 

 Camps are used for two or three seasons and then abandoned or 

 else used as storehouses. Board camps are used chiefly on rail- 

 road operations. Supplies are hauled in on sleds or wagons 

 where rail transport is not available. Workmen do not bring 

 their families into camp. 



Topography and Bottom. — The topography of the region 

 ranges from rolling to rough, and the bottom is often covered with 

 a heavy growth of underbrush. The steep slopes are usually 

 rocky. The rolling land provides a good bottom for animals. 

 Swamps are common in the region and usually have to be logged 

 during the winter season. 



Felling and Log-making. — The practice is to fell the timber 

 with the saw and ax. The boles are cut into standard lengths for 

 saw logs, and into long logs when the timber is to be manufac- 

 tured into pulpwood, although occasionally pulpwood timber is 

 cut into 4-foot lengths for ease in handling. The fallers work in 

 crews of two or three men and cut and make into logs from 

 5000 to 8000 feet of timber, daily. Spruce pulpwood is some- 

 times peeled in the forest. 



Skidding. — Animal logging predominates in the region, al- 

 though a few cableway skidders have been used in New England 

 on difficult logging chances. Snaking machines have been 

 employed to a very limited extent in the mountains of northern 

 New York. Yarding, on operations where a sled haul is used, 

 begins early in September and continues until the snow gets too 



