28 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



wood to give it a start. Every morning on the way to work, and every evening on 

 the way from work, spend half an hour in poking up the embers of the fire and 

 rolling over the edge of the pit a fresh supply of logs and roots. Put on the small 

 stuff first and then roll on some of the biggest or wettest. With very little attention 

 the fire will never go out till everything is burnt up, and there will be a good pile 

 of ashes left which can be hauled away and spread over any bare spots on the clear- 

 ing, whereas, if there had been a number of log-heaps scattered here and there, there 

 would not have been enough ashes anywhere to have fertilized any one burnt spot. 

 The same system of burning can also be applied when you come to take out the 

 stumps, particularly the smaller ones and the second-growth firs that have been 

 cut for cordwood. This system of logging is a long stride in advance of the old 

 method of piling in heaps and burning on the ground, as the soil, not being spoilt 

 by everburning, is only one of the advantages. It is much lighter work, as almost 

 all the handling is done by teams, and it takes far less time both in getting the 

 logs ready for burning and also in the burning itself. In the first place, the logs 

 need rarely be sawn into anything less than 12-foot lengths, and very little splitting 

 is necessary; there is no lifting or skidding required at all, and if this lifting or 

 skidding is done by hand it is the heaviest and hardest work of all the clearing 

 operations, besides taking from two to four men. Then, again, when you have an 

 ordinary heap of unsplit logs burnt, there is probably half of it left, and it has to 

 be replied and branded up, and this cannot be done until the fire is quite out and 

 the ashes cold, which will often take two or three days. In addition, the branding- 

 up operation often has to be repeated two or three times; besides which, you can 

 only burn unsplit log-heaps in the dry weather, just at the time when you are busy 

 with something else. 



The burning-pit method is largely intended to be suggestive; in practice many 

 slight modifications will probably suggest themselves; one good plan is to blast out 

 one of the largest fir stumps, at some central or convenient point in the clearing ; do 

 not be afraid of using plenty of powder. Use too much rather than too little ; put 

 the hole away down below all the roots, the length of a long shovel handle at least, 

 so as to get the end of the hole well under the centre of the stump, the object being 

 to blow out the entire stump at one blast, so that not a fragment remains in. This 

 will also blast a very large hole in the ground, which can be used as a burning-pit, 

 and will have all the advantages described above, besides the additional one of 

 having got rid of the stump at no more cost than digging the burning-pit. You can 

 burn all the logs and rubbish and other roots in this hole without burning the 

 surface of your ground, exactly in the same way as is described above. After the 

 large pieces are logged out and either piled in the hole' or round the edge of it, 

 there is often a good deal of more or less rotten stuff which is very wet. To save 

 handling this twice, it is advisable to start the fire in the burning-pit, and then 

 when this has burned down a little keep hauling on the small rotten pieces of wood 

 and other wet material. This can be thrown in (no matter how wet it is) and will 

 all burn, and by burning it now it saves rehandling later on. 



If it is the intention to take out the big stumps before the ploughing is done, then 

 it is better to take them out at this stage while the logging is going on, as there is 

 then more material with which to burn up the stumps. In some cases, if all the 

 logs are burnt before the big stumps are taken out, it is more difficult to burn these 

 big stumps up after they are blasted, as it often needs some loose and smaller 

 material to keep the fire going. 



The operation of logging and burning up the logs and stumps is the bugbear 

 of every one clearing land, and it often deters people from starting, but if done in 

 the way suggested above most of the " hard-work " part of it is taken out, and 

 the time required greatly reduced. The team-work required when using a burning- 

 pit is very little more than is required by the old method. Logs and stumps can 

 be hauled to the burning-pit for a distance of about 30 to 40 rods, and it is still 

 cheaper by this method. 



