98 THE PINE-TREE, OR 



equal those awakened at the launching of a vessel. This pro- 

 cess is gone through with several times each day during the win- 

 ter (Sundays excepted) ; really it is like going to launching every 

 day, and the pleasurable excitement of the labor renders it ex- 

 tremely delightful to most who are engaged in it. 



The general custom is to take the whole trunk of the tree to 

 the landing at one load, when its size will allow, where it is 

 sawed into short logs from fourteen to thirty feet in length, to fa- 

 cilitate the driving down river. I have cut one tree into five 

 logs, the shortest of which was not less than fourteen feet. I 

 have seen them hauled eighty-two feet in length, resembling, in 

 their passage to the landing, immense serpents crawling from 

 their lurking-places. Thus we continue to fell, clear, and haul 

 until the " clump" is exhausted, and our attention is again di- 

 rected to another school of these forest whales, and so on until 

 our winter's work is completed. 



Formerly, Pine-trees grew in abundance on the banks of rivers 

 and streams, and the margins of those wild lakes found in the in- 

 terior. Thousands were cut and rolled into the water, or on the 

 ice, and perhaps a much larger number were so near the landing 

 as to require merely to be dragged out, thus avoiding the labor 

 of loading, in which case, from the massive size of the trees, it 

 was necessary to cut them into short logs. Such opportunities, 

 however, for lumber have gone by, and the greater portion has 

 now to be hauled from a considerable distance. A greater scarci- 

 ty is too evidently at hand, though, were every Pine-tree sound 

 and good, no end to the quantity might yet be thought of; for, 

 notwithstanding the immense quantities cut, and the devastating 

 fires by which hundreds of millions have been destroyed, on some 

 rivers it still abounds, but a large portion of Pine is found in a 

 rotten and decayed state at heart. Having long since come to 

 maturity, that peculiar process which makes its impress upon all 

 earthly objects, decay, is nowhere more general in its depreda- 



