660 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



a lieutenant who lias two sergeants under him, one in 

 charge of the felling and brush cutting and the other 

 looking after the loading and railroad building. Under 

 the sergeants are corporals in direct charge of felling, 

 brush cutting, loading, railroad construction and scaling. 

 The fellers work in two-man crews and fell on an average 

 6000 ft. B. M. per day. To keep the mill going night and 

 day shifts some 300 trees per day must be felled and put 

 on the railways at the mill. Loading in the woods is done 

 with a "Gin-pole" (see photograph) which works very 

 efficiently. The tops of the trees (and there isn't much 

 top left) and the limbs are converted into cord wood or 

 charcoal, in the wods, the charcoal burning being done 

 by a crew of Spanish laborers for a French munitions 

 plant in the region. The forests contain a very heavy 

 growth of underbrush, from 4 to 10 feet in height (sons- 



of pine. In the woods the logs are hauled to the railroad 

 landings with horses and "big wheels," the Company 

 using some 60 head of horses in its operation. The big 

 wheel bunching and loading is in charge of two former 

 lumberjacks who worked for a purchaser of Government 

 timber on a National Forest in New Mexico ; both know 

 their business and are good, steady men. 



The mid-day meal for the woods crews is sent out to 

 them on the logging train. The men are working 10 

 hours, the mill running 20 hours out of every 24, except 

 on Sunday when as a rule no work is done. On Saturday 

 afternoons the men shave and clean up and line up for 

 inspection, when their personal appearance as well as 

 their tents are looked over critically. At these inspections 

 the kitchens, mess hall, stable, meat houses and entire 

 camp are also inspected to make sure that the camp is 

 kept in a neat, orderly and sani- 

 tary condition. 



The mill is rated at 20,000 ft. 

 B. M. per day capacity, but has 

 been averaging 30,000 ft. per 10 

 hour shift. The record cut for 

 10 hours to April 10, was 38,660 

 ft. B. M. 



The mill is equipped with 

 circular saws, edgers, cut-off 



The side-walls are covered with slabs and the 

 porch columns are made of cork-bark oak. 



bois, the French call it), very prickly 

 and nasty to handle and very easy to 

 bum. This all has to be cut and piled 

 for burning later. Needless to say that 

 stumps are cut low, eight inches or 

 under, as a rule as low if not lower 

 than the French cut them in this region. 

 In short the principles of forestry in 

 the main are being followed. The 

 reputation of American foresters is at stake in the opera- 

 tions of the Forestry Regiments ; in our lumbering opera- 



THE V. M. C. A. HUT 



This shows the sergeant in charge of all construction work standing at the corner of the hut. 



saws, and a very satisfactory electric lighting plant for 

 the night shift. This plant (20 H. P. Engine) supplies 

 tions over here we are going to be judged largely as lights for the entire camp, stable, kitchens, mess, office, 

 foresters, not as lumbermen, and here let me say that and there is a light in each tent. At one end of the mill 

 the American lumbermen and the American lumberjacks are two railways with tracks on the outer side of each 



in the Forestry Regiments are receiving a liberal educa 

 tion in forestry over here and the prediction is made 

 that they are going to return to the United States with a 

 whole lot clearer idea of the value of forests and forestry 

 than they ever had before. The region where Company 

 is operating is a striking example of the wisdom of 

 forestry. A waste, almost a desert, has been converted 

 into a highly productive region through the planting 



and a flume in between. This flume was considerable of 

 an experiment at first but has proven very satisfactory. 

 The logs are brought in from the woods on light cars, are 

 rolled off onto the rollway, then dumped into the flume, 

 poled to the haul-up and raised directly to the log-deck 

 by the side of the carriage. The boiler furnaces are 

 equipped with "dutch ovens" enabling the larger part of 

 the sawdust to be burned. The mill is under the super- 



