A SEVEN HUNDRED YEAR LOGGING COMPANY 



197 



a way that the logs can always be slid down to them 

 from above. It is only necessary to attach a check rope 

 to the upper end of the log, clean off the bark and 

 branches and give it a start. Several men follow it on 

 either side to guide its passage with crowbar thrusts, 

 while above, with the rope turned about a tree, another 

 man controls the speed of the descent. So expert does 

 this crew become that log after log slips down in the 

 same track, a track hardly wider than the diameter of the 

 largest butt. It is quite as fascinating to watch as the 



PERMANENT LOGGING ROADS 



Good, permanent roads traversing the forest are required, but 

 since they do duty for generations, the cost of construction is an 

 investment which need be only slowly written off. 



acrobatic donkey engines of the Pacific coast, and fre- 

 quently hardly less rapid. 



The removal of the stacked piles of cordwood from 

 top and branches is rather more exciting to both onlooker 

 and participants. The wood is loaded upon one-man 



A SAW AXU PULP MILL IN THE BLACK FOREST 



The stockholders in this company are also its principal custom- 

 ers descendants of the original rafters, they now own and oper- 

 ate some of the finest wood-using concerns of Germany. 



sledges with shafts as if for a pony. One man picks 

 them up while the loaders give a starting shove and 

 down he goes. As the slope becomes steeper the pace 

 increases, for there is no stopping; all the man can do is 

 to guide his load and keep it from upsetting. The visitor 



THE LOGGING CAMP OF THE FUTURE 



Oak-raftered, mud and stone houses surrounded by cultivated 

 fields take the place of the temporary shacks so well-known in 

 America. 



sees it go careening around a little bend to avoid some 

 young growth or old stumps and hopes for the best until 

 a shout from below reports the safe arrival. Sometimes 

 accidents do occur; the conductor is undecided for an 

 instant which side of a stump to go, the runner strikes a 



GERMAN PEASANTS COLLECTING FIREWOOD 



After the loggers have completed their task, nothing larger 

 than about an inch or two in diameter remains. The nearby 

 peasants pay about 10c an acre for the privilege of collecting 

 these twigs for their household fires. 



