STEEP TRAILS 



been built to fetch in the logs from the best 

 bodies of timber otherwise inaccessible except 

 at great cost. None of the ground, however, 

 has been completely denuded. Most of the 

 young trees have been left, together with the 

 hemlocks and other trees undesirable in kind 

 or in some way defective, so that the neigh- 

 boring trees appear to have closed over the 

 gaps made by the removal of the larger and 

 better ones, maintaining the general contin- 

 uity of the forest and leaving no sign on the 

 sylvan sea, at least as seen from a distance. 



In felling the trees they cut them off usu- 

 ally at a height of six to twelve feet above the 

 ground, so as to avoid cutting through the 

 swollen base, where the diameter is so much 

 greater. In order to reach this height the 

 chopper cuts a notch about two inches wide 

 and three or four deep and drives a board into 

 it, on which he stands while at work. In case 

 the first notch, cut as high as he can reach, is 

 not high enough, he stands on the board that 

 has been driven into the first notch and cuts 

 another. Thus the axeman may often be seen 

 at work standing eight or ten feet above the 

 ground. If the tree is so large that with his 

 long-handled axe the chopper is unable to 

 reach to the farther side of it, then a second 

 chopper is set to work, each cutting halfway 



244 



