NATURAL WOODS. 231 



For the information of those who may be 

 strangers to the operation of barking, it may 

 be proper to state the process. 



Three classes of people are employed : 

 the hagmen, or cutters, the carriers, and the 

 barkers. The latter chiefly consist of wo- 

 men and children. The cutters are, or 

 should be, provided with ripping-saws widely 

 set, with sharp, light hatchets, and with 

 short-handled pruning-hooks. The carriers 

 should be provided with short ropes, stout 

 limbs, and broad shoulders. The barkers 

 are provided with light, short-handled, ashen 

 mallets, the head being about eight inches 

 long, three inches diameter in the face, 

 and the other end blunt, somewhat wedge- 

 shaped ; with sharp ashen wedges, somewhat 

 spatula-shaped, and which may either be 

 drove by the mallet, or, being formed with a 

 kind of handle, may be pushed with the 

 hand ; and with a smooth-skinned whin, or 

 other landstone, the size of one's head. 



The cutters are divided into two parties ; 

 hatchet- men, who sever the stem ; and hook- 

 men, who prune it of small twigs, and cut it 

 into convenient lengths. The carriers bun- 



Q 



