LUMBER 



3533 



LUMBER 



;imes bound together in a rude raft called a 

 Doom. The men travel with them, living in 

 aft shanties. Their business is to see that the 

 ogs do not get caught in rapids or falls, or at 



4 



LOG RAFT 



A common scene on rivers in the Pacific states 

 and in Western Canada. In this way thousands 

 of logs are towed out into the ocean on their way 

 from forest to mill. 



bends in the stream, and form a jam, and a 

 'lumberjack" can walk on a rolling, tumbling 

 log as easily, apparently, as on a sidewalk. The 

 Mississippi has been one of the great highways 

 for lumber logs, but since the spring of 1916 no 



The tree 



20 40 60 



1.00 



In the 

 factory 



A PART OF THE LUMBER WASTE 

 Of the 100 per cent of wood in a tree, 37 per 

 cent is lost in the forest ; of the 63 per cent of the 

 tree which reaches the mill only 42 per cent is 

 utilized, and in the factory the part used is only 

 38 per cent of the original tree. 



rafts have been permitted on it. The Ottawa 

 River, in Canada, is now perhaps the most im- 

 portant stream where this type of lumbering 

 may be seen, with all its old-time picturesque 

 and adventurous element. 



In the South, from which comes the largest 

 part of the lumber of the United States, rail- 

 roads are built into the forests and the logs are 

 pulled or skidded to the cars either by machin- 

 ery or by horses. In British Columbia and the 

 Puget Sound region machine power is employed 

 almost entirely, because of the great size of the 

 trees which are cut. In other lands many novel 

 methods of lumbering are practiced, and in 

 Burma you may see, as Kipling says 

 Elephints a-pilin' teak 

 In the sludgy, squdgy creek. 



After logs reach the sawmills they are 

 handled almost entirely by machinery. They 

 are cut by circular saws or by band saws long 

 belts of toothed steel moved rapidly by large 

 wheels. Gang saws are parallel sets of circular 

 saws which cut a log into several boards at 

 once. Saws give rough surfaces to the lumber. 



HOW LUMBER IS SAWED 

 In cutting logs the lumberman has three aims : 

 to gain quantity, strength, and, in some cases, 

 beauty. (1) The lines for cutting show a simple 

 method when quantity is important. (2) Plank 

 B will warp in drying, because the rings at the 

 outer edge are longer and will shrink more than 

 those at the inner side ; plank A will not warp. 

 (3) The beauty of quarter-sawed oak is gained 

 by cutting a plank with a silver-grain surface 

 that is, along the rays A A , which run from the 

 center of the tree to the bark. ( 4 ) Four methods 

 of ouarter-sawing : A makes every plank silver- 

 grained and not liable to warp, but wastes over 

 one-fourth of the log; B saves time but not mate- 

 rial, and the planks are nearly as high grade as 

 in A; C is economical, but only one-fifth of the 

 planks have real beauty and strength ; D is for 

 cutting beams, of which 1 and 2 are the best, 5 

 and 6 the poorest. 



Special machines, usually in a separate estab- 

 lishment, called a planing-mill, finish the lum- 

 ber which must be smooth. 



New lumber contains so much sap that it 

 must be dried, either in kilns or in the air. If 

 seasoned in the open air from one to four years 

 it is suitable for most purposes, but will shrink 



