WAR MATERIALS FROM FRENCH FORESTS 



75 



"My particular job is putting out the raw material and 

 it would be a lot too much for me if I didn't have a fine 

 lot of men with all kinds of experience and who know 

 the game. As it is, we are putting out the stuff. Dunbar, 

 by the way, is making very good as a sergeant, handling 

 the general office business and discipline. Miller Benedict 

 is summary court officer for Company D and I have the 

 same job for Company F. Wish you could drop in to 

 look us over. You would 

 enjoy showing us how to 

 save time and effort and 

 we would give you plenty 

 of bully beef and beans, to- 

 gether with about every- 

 thing else needed. Great 

 lot of officers and men in 

 this outfit." 



According to a letter from 

 Captain E.W.Kelley, Com- 

 pany F, Tenth Engineers, 

 his Company had the honor 

 of manufacturing the first 

 board made by American 

 troops in France. A sec- 

 tion of the board is on its 

 way to the San Francisco 

 office to be preserved as a 

 relic. 



Floyd A. Colby, of the 

 Sierra National Forest, 

 writes : "The French have 

 a novel system of logging, 

 at least it is new to me. 

 First, they go out into the 

 woods, pick out the trees 

 they want to fell, then one 

 man climbs to the top and 

 trims off the limbs. They 

 do this to avoid knocking 

 down the smaller trees, or of even breaking the limbs off. 

 When they get ready to fell the trees, they side-notch it, 

 no matter how small it is. That is something I cannot ac- 

 count for in small timber. They use oak wedges, about 

 two or three, and a common timber saw about five or 

 six feet long, and it has no drags on it. The teeth are 

 just like those of a hand-saw. When they get the tree 

 down they peel it to full length, that is, to where the 

 tree is about three inches in diameter. They do not saw 

 it into cuts in the woods, but haul it full length. 



"The trucks are what I would call a common four- 

 horse wagon, only they are a narrower gauge than our 

 narrow gauge wagons. They use about two oxen to a 

 truck and it takes about half a day for them to load, 

 which is done with a logging jack of the ratchet variety. 

 They come in with those trees full length about 150 

 feet long, and have two or more on the wagon. One is 

 loaded on the bunk and one under the axle. They un- 

 couple their wagons and set the wheels 80 to 100 feet 

 apart, and when they come to a turn they unfasten the 



FORESTER GRAVES IN FRENCH FOREST 



The United States Forester is here shown in one of the pieces of woodland 

 in which the American Forest Regiments are employed. The tree by which 

 he stands is a maritime pine, the turpentine pine of France. It is not quite 

 as large as our yellow pine, but produces some exceedingly good timber. 



reach of the rear truck and steer with it around the 

 corner. The brake is on the front wheels and is made 

 on a crank with threads on the straight part of it. So, to 

 put on the brake, the driver grabs the crank and starts 

 winding. The oxen have their yokes (I guess that is 

 what they call them) fastened to their horns. The yoke 

 is only a little light piece of wood and is nearly straight, 

 and there is a pad just behind the horns for the yoke to 



rest on. There is a hole in 

 the front of the yoke- 

 through which they poke 

 the wagon tongue. A 

 wooden pin holds it in 

 place. When they want to 

 back up, they turn the team 

 around and put the tongue 

 in the other way, so they 

 push on the end of it. Of 

 course methods here are all 

 new to us, and we are get- 

 ting new ideas every day. 

 We lose a lot of things we 

 never dreamed of, but I 

 suppose the French would 

 be just as surprised at some 

 of our customs. 



"The French forests are 

 all clean no windfalls and 

 no burnt butts on the trees. 

 The trees are tall, straight 

 and round, and hold their 

 size pretty well. They are 

 thick and often in rows. 



"It would make you 

 laugh to hear some of the 

 arguments that are pulled 

 off here. There is some 

 kind of an argument going 

 on all the time. The sub- 

 jects are of all kinds on all phases of life, labor, war, 

 religion, and I might include the Bible. We had a discus- 

 sion of saw-handles the other day. All the men from the 

 Middle West and Eastern States claimed a straight handle 

 was the best for all work bucking and felling. They 

 said it was better than our standard handle, especially for 

 felling 'the handle set on the top of the saw,' they said. 

 You can imagine what a man used to our saws would 

 say if you gave him one of those. There isn't a thing 

 to prevent you from getting your fingers pinched, es- 

 pecially in sawing large trees. For my part, I wouldn't 

 use one of those for any purpose. They claimed they 

 threw our kind of handles on the scrap heap years ago. 

 "The weather here has been bad for a few days, rain 

 and snow and quite cold. Of course the temperature is 

 not so low, but it is that damp, disagreeable kind of cold 

 cloudy and foggy nearly all the time. I judge from 

 the 'water moss' on the trees and on the ground all 

 through the woods that it rains almost incessantly here. 

 This moss never grows in a dry climate. 



