The Forest Industries 81 



along this road a sawmill is set up. The road 

 serves both to carry the logs to the mill and 

 the lumber to market. These logging railroads 

 are of the roughest kind as to roadbed and equip- 

 ment. They serve their immediate purpose, how- 

 ever ; and sometimes, after the timber which they 

 made accessible has been removed, they become 

 regular railways to supply the traffic of the settle- 

 ments which may have sprung up in the meantime. 

 As the pine timber has become scarcer and 

 scarcer in the easily accessible places, it has, of 

 course, become more important to know just where 

 to find it. This has given rise to a peculiar class of 

 people variously known as woodsmen, cruisers, land- 

 lookers, whose business it is to give information as 

 to the existence of pine timber, its location, amount, 

 value, and everything else that a party seeking to 

 buy " stumpage " that is, standing timber must 

 know. These men have a remarkable acquaintance 

 with large portions of forest, sometimes covering 

 almost a whole State. Their information is usually 

 recorded in maps drawn by themselves in little 

 books made for the purpose little blank books 

 that can be carried in the pocket, each page usually 

 arranged to cover one section of land. As the 

 information contained in these books is the stock- 

 in-trade of the cruiser, he is rather jealous of di- 

 vulging its contents, for which he ought not to be 

 blamed. Often he is in the permanent employ of 

 a lumbering or other corporation owning timber 

 lands ; at other times he is in independent business, 



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