Pseudotsuga 821 



product, and is worth a much higher price than the more or less knotty lumber known 

 as "merchantable." 



The business of lumbering which has been carried on for many years on a very 

 large scale is, on the Pacific coast, as in most parts of North America, conducted in a 

 way which, though perhaps necessary in order to meet the severe competition for 

 price which everywhere prevails, would shock the feelings of any European forester, 

 on account of its wastefulness and the absolute disregard which is paid to the future 

 of the forest ; which is in most cases abandoned to fire, as soon as the soundest, 

 cleanest, and most accessible trees have been extracted. 



A tract of land having been first surveyed, and its probable contents roughly 

 estimated by the " cruiser," on whose judgment in selecting the best field of operations 

 much of the success of the business depends, is purchased or leased from the 

 owner on the basis of so much per thousand feet board measure. This estimate 

 runs in most cases from 20,000 to 70,000 feet per acre, and as far as I could judge 

 is rarely more than half, and often much less than half, of the actual contents, which 

 in favourable situations amounts to as much as 300,000 to 500,000 feet per acre. 



Unless the timber to be felled is near the sea, in which case it is on Puget Sound 

 often slid direct into the salt water, made up into rafts, and towed by steamers to the 

 sawmill, the next operation is to build a railroad up the valley to bring the logs 

 from the forest to the sawmill. Sometimes the mill is in the forest itself, and a 

 wooden flume of many miles in length is built, by which the sawn boards can be 

 floated down to the nearest railway station. Sometimes the logs themselves are 

 floated to the mill, where a large enough river exists ; or a combination of railway, 

 river, and flume may have to be adopted as the distance from the mill or station 

 increases. The cost of extracting the logs from the forest and bringing them to 

 their shipping point, governs the value of the growing timber, which is rapidly 

 becoming less and less accessible as the best areas are cut over. 



When the means of transport are completed, a "skid road" or a temporary 

 tramway is built right up to where the trees grow, and powerful movable donkey 

 engines are used, which are able, with a steel-wire rope, to drag logs of 40 to 50 

 feet long to a distance of 1000 yards or more from where they fall. Felling then 

 commences and is managed as follows : The most experienced man in the gang, 

 having marked the trees to be felled, cuts a deep notch into one side at 4 to 6 feet 

 from the ground, after carefully considering which way the tree should fall, so as 

 to run least risk of lodging, or of breaking in falling. Both the undercutting and 

 the sawing which follows, are done on spring boards fixed into a notch cut into 

 the butt at 3 to 4 feet from the ground. When the two fellers, who sometimes 

 make the notch themselves, have got within 5 to 6 inches of it, they insert large 

 iron wedges in the sawcut, carefully watching the top of the tree to see where 

 the wedges should be driven, so as to fell the tree with least danger to themselves 

 and the log. After a few blows on the wedges the tree begins to lean and the 

 men jump clear, calling out to warn others who may be near. There is some 

 risk of large branches being torn off the falling tree or adjacent trees, and many 

 accidents occur. 



