84 THE PINE-TREE, OR 



road in mid- winter, one would hardly suspect the deformities 

 which the dissolving snows reveal in the spring — the stumps and 

 knolls, skids and roots, with a full share of mud-sloughs, impass- 

 able to all except man, or animals untrammeled with the harness. 



In the process of making these roads, the first thing in order 

 is to look out the best location for them. This is done by an ex- 

 perienced hand, who "spots" the trees where he wishes the road 

 to be " swamped." "We usually begin at the landing, and cut 

 back toward the principal part of the timber to be hauled. 



In constructing this road, first all the underbrush is cut and 

 thrown on one side ; all trees standing in its range are cut close 

 to the ground, and the trunks of prostrated trees cut off and 

 thrown out, leaving a space from ten to twelve feet wide. The 

 tops of the highest knolls are scraped off, and small poles, called 

 skids, are laid across the road in the hollows between. Where 

 a brook or slough occurs, a pole-bridge is thrown across it. 



These preparatory arrangements are entered upon and prose- 

 cuted with a degree of interest and pleasure by lumbermen 

 scarcely credible to those unacquainted with such a mode of life 

 and with such business. Though not altogether unacquainted 

 with other occupations and other sources of enjoyment, still, to 

 such scenes my thoughts run back for the happier portions of 

 life and experience. 



I have attended to various kinds of labor, but never have I 

 entered upon any half so pleasing as that usually performed in 

 the "logging swamp." Although greatly jeoparding my repu- 

 tation for taste, I will utter it. Positively, it is delightful. I 

 have since had some years' experience in one of the professions, 

 in the enjoyment of some of the refinements of life, yet, if it could 

 be done consistently, I would now with eagerness exchange my 

 house for the logging camp, my books for the ax, and the city 

 full for those wilderness solitudes whose delightful valleys and 

 swelling ridges give me Nature uncontaminated — I had almost 



