Since the Days of Leif Ericson 



harmful to the forest generally the 

 early loggers searched out the biggest 

 and best trees, felled them, cut out the 

 best parts by hand, and then skidded 

 the logs to the mill or the water with 

 animals. By our present-day standards 

 those methods were wasteful, but they 

 did leave a good stand of trees for con- 

 tinuing growth. 



As time went on and the markets 

 for timber became bigger and less 

 selective, faster and faster methods of 

 logging and more complete cuts be- 

 came the style. Particularly harmful 

 were the high-lead cable-skidding jobs 

 that usually went with logging rail- 

 roads. It was costly to put a tempo- 

 rary logging railroad into a timbered 

 area, and frequently the operator 

 believed it was necessary to cut every- 

 thing merchantable in the area to 

 repay his railroad-installation cost. 

 Cable skidding, especially a carelessly 

 used high-lead, frequently knocked 

 down everything that was not cut. 

 Skylines frequently are not so destruc- 

 tive, except when the line is pulled 

 directly from one tail spar to another, 

 mowing down everything between. 

 Both railroads and steam-powered 

 cable skidders were also responsible 

 for starting many forest fires. Some 

 of the new cable-skidding systems 

 powered by internal-combustion mo- 

 tors can be operated with a minimum 

 of damage. 



Tractor and truck logging in itself 

 is not so damaging. Truck roads fre- 

 quently can be built more cheaply 

 than railroads, and they have a last- 

 ing value, particularly for fire protec- 

 tion after the logging job is completed. 

 Tractors can be operated efficiently 

 on a selective-logging job, if proper 

 care is taken in laying out the skid 

 trails and in felling the trees so that 

 they can be pulled directly into the 

 trail without switching around. Some 

 tractor drivers, particularly of the 

 heavier and more powerful machines, 

 are responsible for much unnecessary 

 damage as a result of the way in which 

 they plow around in the woods. 



The chain saw also has been respon- 



693 



sible for some unnecessary losses in the 

 woods. It takes considerable experi- 

 ence with the chain saw to learn to fell 

 trees as accurately as the old-time log- 

 gers do with hand tools, but it can be 

 done. Once skill is acquired, tricks can 

 be done with it that were impossible 

 by hand methods. The chain saw with 

 its faster cutting rate also makes it eco- 

 nomical to recover sound portions from 

 partially rotten or poorly formed trees 

 that would not have been touched by 

 men using hand tools. 



INTEGRATED LOGGING is the harvest 

 of all the trees that should be cut at a 

 given time in one operation, and the 

 distribution of each product obtained 

 to the industry that can use it to the 

 best advantage. 



Too much of our logging has been 

 one- product logging: A pulp mill 

 would cut the spruce and fir pulpwood 

 from a stand ; a few years later a veneer 

 mill would go into the same area to log 

 out the high-grade hardwood veneer 

 logs. That usually required the con- 

 struction of new roads and camps or 

 the rebuilding of old ones. Later op- 

 erations in the same place might be 

 conducted by an ash or hickory handle- 

 stock concern, a white pine or hard- 

 wood sawlog man, and finally a fuel or 

 distillation-wood operator. Many of 

 these operations would leave lying on 

 the ground material that could have 

 been used to advantage by one of the 

 other concerns. The sum total of the 

 logging costs would be much greater 

 than the total of one integrated opera- 

 tion, recovery from the trees cut would 

 be less, and in many cases fast-growing 

 trees that should have been left would 

 have been cut to help pay the overhead 

 costs of the individual jobs. 



There are many obstacles to con- 

 ducting completely integrated logging. 

 When labor is scarce, each concern 

 wants to obtain the maximum amount 

 of material with its force for^ its own 

 needs. Different equipment is some- 

 times needed to log different products. 

 Unfamiliar specifications and markets 

 have to be learned. But advantages 



