690 



of Agriculture 1949 



the tractor grader, and other tools for 

 building low-cost access roads. 



Water transportation is still used. 

 River driving remains the cheapest 

 means for transporting large quantities 

 of wood over long distances. Elaborate 

 systems of dams and other works are 

 used to provide the necessary flow of 

 water to carry the wood down. In one 

 famous case, Maine loggers diverted 

 water from the St. John headwaters 

 into those of the Penobscot and precipi- 

 tated some international complications 

 with Canada. When the drives must be 

 taken across lakes or other bodies of 

 still water, it is usually necessary to 

 enclose acres of floating wood in booms 

 of long logs chained end to end. The 

 two ends are drawn together and this 

 giant wood-filled purse is then pulled 

 across the lake. 



For longer voyages on big bodies of 

 water that may be rough, various types 

 of barges and rafts have been used. A 

 plywood company is towing rafts of 

 hardwood logs made buoyant by spruce 

 frames the length of Moosehead Lake 

 in Maine. Large quantities of pulp- 

 wood are rafted across Lake Superior 

 from Canada to the United States. 

 On the Pacific coast, a cigar-shaped 

 structure bound together with cables 

 and containing up to a million board 

 feet of long logs is pulled by a tug- 

 boat. High-grade spruce logs needed 

 for aircraft manufacture were recently 

 brought from Alaska to Puget Sound 

 by this method. 



BACK IN THE WOODS the methods 

 for skidding the logs to the roads have 

 also become more specialized. As log- 

 ging pushed into the rougher and more 

 swampy country, the horse reached the 

 end of his road. Other skidding 

 methods had to be found. 



Various types of chutes and slides 

 have been tried, but cable skidders 

 have generally been more successful. 

 The first was the cable skidder that 

 pulled the log by a single cable reeled 

 in on a steam-powered drum. It was 

 soon found that the inward pull of the 

 cable, carried through a block hung on 



a nearby tree, would also have a lift- 

 ing action sufficient to bring the log 

 over the stumps and other obstacles. 

 Thus the method known as "high- 

 lead" logging was born. Then another 

 drum was attached to the winding 

 engine and a lighter cable was strung 

 through blocks out to the scene of the 

 cutting and fastened to the end of the 

 main dragline; in this way it was pos- 

 sible to have a power haul-back on the 

 dragline. It was only a step further 

 to the idea of a cable skyline with a 

 carriage pulled in by the dragline and 

 out again by the haul-back. The fur- 

 ther development of a locking and 

 tripping device made it possible to pick 

 up the log at its stump, pull it up to the 

 carriage, and bring it to the landing 

 entirely suspended in the air. Many 

 and varied are the adaptations of the 

 cable systems the North Bend, the 

 Dunham, the Tyler, the slack line, and 

 so forth. Each has its merits for spe- 

 cific localities or types of timber. 



On the more favorable terrain, the 

 arts of ground skidding developed in 

 another direction. Loggers found 

 that their scoots and sleds, first used 

 for winter skidding, were effective also 

 in the summer. In country with stony 

 and gravel soils these devices helped 

 to keep the logs clean and free from dirt 

 that wrecked saws and chipper knives 

 at the mills. Wheeled devices of var- 

 ious kinds came into use carts, wag- 

 ons, and bummers. Finally came the 

 colorful high wheels, which sup- 

 ported the front ends of huge loads of 

 long logs as they were dragged to the 

 landing. 



Ground skidding, however, really 

 got its new lease on life with the devel- 

 opment of the crawler tractor 

 equipped with winch and arch. The 

 arch is even more sturdy and effective 

 than were the high wheels. The cable 

 from the tractor winch is carried 

 through a fair-lead at the top of the 

 arch, and this gives some of the high- 

 lead effect in the bunching of scat- 

 tered loads of logs. The crawler 

 tracks, or pneumatic tires, upon which 

 the arch is mounted, provide a means 



