Lumbering on Sc ientific Basis 



By J. P. NA5H 



TO one not familiar with the lumber industry, the progress in scientific 

 lumbering during the past twenty years must indeed appear marvel- 

 ous. But to him who has been close to it, it has been simply a pro- 

 cess of evolution, step by step, from one improvement to another, 

 and has caused little more wonder than the growth of a child. Yet 

 when the writer looks back to the time, some twenty years ago, when 

 first employed in "the woods" by one of the most progressive lumbering 

 concerns in California, and reviews the advances made up to the present, 

 he realizes that in few other lines of industry has there been more progress 

 than in scientific lumbering. 



Even then the horse team had begun to supplant the "plodding ox." 

 whose death knell was soon sounded by the whistle of the logging donkey. 

 This was at first the old upright spool engine upon which a two-inch hemp 

 rope was used for hauling in the logs. The fact that this rope was costly 

 and short-lived suggested the use of the wire cable, which has since been 

 so improved that now it is practically as pliable as hemp, and, on account 

 of its durability, is much cheaper. This is important, as the cable is one 

 of the chief items of expense in present day logging. In spite of all of the 

 arguments of the "bull-punchers," these donkeys were a success. Soon 

 the stress of keen competition, and the active mind of the logger, who is 

 generally a specimen of good mentality as well as of fine physique, evolved 

 the "bull donkey," a machine that would haul a larger load a greater dis- 

 tance and at less expense. 



It was a far cry from the first "bull," which was a composite of several 

 old engines, and would haul logs only one thousand feet, to the present 

 powerful, yet symmetrical and compact machine that carries from a mile 

 to a mile and a half of cable. However, it has still been found necessary to 

 use smaller engines for the purpose of "yarding" the logs to the "bull 

 donkey's" cables, and these have been so improved that their speed and 

 strength have been doubled, thus doubling the hauling capacity. 



A like improvement is noticeable in the iron blocks used for directing 

 the cables so as to avoid rocks, trees, stumps and other obstructions, and 

 in the cross-cut saws and axes employed in falling timber, the crescent- 

 ground, thin-backed saw having supplanted the old-time thick-backed saw, 

 and the double-bitted the old-style pole axe. 



Logging railroads with powerfully geared locomotives and strongly 

 built cars have taken the place of the cumbersome wooden-wheeled logging 

 trucks of old. Coming to the mill, we now have the millpond, wherein 

 the logs are cleaned and sorted. A new appliance, recently installed in 

 one of California's most progressive mills, picks up the "sinker" logs with 

 grappling hooks and conveys them by means of an overhead cable trolley 

 to the slip or chute at the mill, where they are placed on the endless jack 

 chain, a successor to the old car and cable system of raising the logs into 

 the mill; are carried to the log deck and lifted out of the chute by patent 

 machines called kickers, and rolled against flippers or deck stops, which 

 hold them in place until ready for the carriage, when by a simple movement 

 of a lever, operated by the foot, the first log is released and the next one is 

 held in place until wanted. This work was formerly done by several men 

 with peavies. 



After being released by the deck stops, the log is seized by the "nig- 

 ger," an almost human contrivance for placing and turning the log upon the 

 carriage. Probably the most remarkable improvement is noticeable in the 

 construction and operation of the carriage used for conveying the logs to 

 and from the saws. This is a development from the old slow rack and 

 pinion "feed" to the present "shot-gun" feed, and from the hand-set to 

 the steam-set, operated with almost lightning rapidity. 



The circular saw has given place to the immense band saw, which 

 latter has been so improved from time to time that it is now a marvel of 

 mechanical ingenuity. From the time that the lumber leaves this saw and 



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