42 USES OF COMMEKCIAL WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



camp was established and the cutting began. Care was not always 

 taken to procure lawful title. Timber stealing from public lands 

 was common in that region, as it had been in New York arid New 

 England earlier and as it was in the Western States at a later period. 

 The owner of a tract sometimes cut more timber from surrounding 

 land than from his own. 



Operations were usually on a large scale. The camp was an aggre- 

 gation of buildings so situated that a large area could be worked 

 from that center. It consisted of a cookhouse, bunkhouse, store, 

 office, and stables. The number of men in a camp varied from 20 

 or less to 100 or more. The hours of work in winter were from day- 

 light till dark ; with extra hours for teamsters and cooks. The most 

 of the work at such camps was done in winter, and the logs were 

 made ready for the spring drives on the rivers. The cutting was 

 done with axes and saws chiefly saws. That was different from 

 the early lumbering in New England, where saws were scarce and 

 expensive and the trees were not only felled with axes, but the logs 

 were cut off by the same tool, with extra chopping to square the ends. 

 The peavy a cant hook with a pike attachment was in universal 

 use in the Michigan lumber regions. Roads were cut in summer to 

 be ready for winter. They led from different parts of the tract to 

 points on the drivable streams where the logs were banked ready for 

 floating. 



The cold was seldom or never severe enough in the northern woods 

 to keep the log cutters from their work, and from the first cool days 

 of autumn till the snow began to melt in the spring the felling of 

 trees and the hauling of logs were pushed with tireless energy. Camp 

 competed with camp and crew with crew in turning out good work 

 and plenty^of it. 



The landings along the streams were piled high with logs by the 

 opening of spring. Millions of feet were ready for the freshets that 

 followed the melting of the snow and the warm rains, and then came 

 the crisis which was to determine whether the long winter's work 

 was to end in complete success or partial failure. The winter's cut 

 must be driven downstream to the mills. If the drive should lag 

 and the falling water find logs still on the way and hung up on bars 

 and ledges, the loss must be considerable, for white-pine logs left all 

 summer are apt to be damaged by the discoloring of the sapwood or 

 by the activity of worms. It was, therefore, a matter of importance 

 that the logs should be safely delivered in the boom at the mill be- 

 fore the spring freshets subsided. The drive was the most trying 

 time of the year. The men worked cheerfully from daylight to dark, 

 nor grumbled if extra hours were required far into the night. It was 

 a time of excessive toil, much excitement, and constant danger. Logs, 

 piled high at the landings, might precipitate themselves with fatal 



