THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOGGING OPERATIONS 



273 



A WELL FILLED MICHIGAN LOG POND 



Hardwoods and softwoods from the northern forests mingle in this reser- 

 voir at Wells, Michigan. The mill belonged to the late Senator Stephen- 

 son, and it is one of the largest in the country cutting hardwood lumber. 

 It is claimed that every species of wood growing in the Upper Peninsula 

 of Michigan passes through this mill in larger or smaller quantities, more 

 than forty species in all. 



axes, as contrasted with crosscut saws in that day, and 

 in Mr. Paschett's opinion, the ax won out. He was 

 speaking of Swedish lumbermen in New Jersey : "They 

 will cut down a tree and cut him off when down, sooner 

 than two men can saw him, and rend him into planks, or 

 what they please, only with ax and wooden wedges." 



Very much later than that day, and not so very long 

 ago, the cost of an ax was a dollar and of a crosscut saw 

 eight or ten dollars. The farmer who cut a few logs, or 

 the owner of a small mill who 

 did not need many, made the 

 difference in the cost of an ax 

 and of a crosscut saw an excuse 

 for using the former and there- 

 by wasting from five to ten per 

 cent of every trunk bucked into 

 logs. That day is past now and 

 the ax has been largely displac- 

 ed by the saw, not only in cross- 

 cutting but also in felling trees, 

 and it saves both time and wood. 

 Along with the saving, the mod- 

 ern foot-high stump should be 

 compared with former stumps 

 which were from three to six 

 feet high, to say nothing of 

 Pacific Coast stumps ten feet 

 high. 



The old-time politician was 

 known as a "stump speaker," be- 

 cause he liked to stand on the 

 high stumps of that day when he 

 made his harangues to his con- 

 stituents. The stump one or two 



yards high gave him a commanding position above his 

 audience. Had stumps been cut as low in those years 

 as they are today by progressive lumbermen, the term 

 "stump speaker" would never have found a place in our 

 vernacular, and though the language would have been 

 one word poorer, the country would have been many 

 million dollars richer by the wood saved in stumps. 



The transportation of sawlogs from forest to mill 

 has furnished many a knotty problem for the operator. 

 The earliest problems were not always the simplest, 

 though that was generally the case. When the trees 

 grew within a stone's throw of the mill which was to 

 saw them, as often happened in pioneer days, a span of 

 horses or a yoke of brawny oxen usually supplied all 

 necessary motive power ; and the equipment consisted of 

 a sled, a cart, a wagon, or perhaps simply a chain to 

 serve as a choker in snaking the logs. The grabhook, 

 which has done such yeoman service in yanking logs out 

 of tight places, was a long time in reaching full develop- 

 ment and use. It was so also with the canthook for 

 rolling logs. That tool was known to the few a long time 

 before it was used by the many. In the times before the 

 canthook and the grabhook were invented, the common 

 saying was true that "logging must be done by main 

 strength and awkwardness." The person who originated 

 that saying builded greater than he knew. As the busi- 

 ness increased to a larger scale, methods improved and 

 new contrivances appeared. Some of the earliest mills 

 in Michigan, recent though that period was, were sup- 

 plied with logs at first by rolling them with handspikes 

 and canthooks from the place where the trees fell to 

 the site of the mill. Such experiences, however, were ex- 

 ceptions everywhere, but something as crude was in use 

 in California after a beginning was made in logging 



A LIDGERWOOD SKIDDER AT WORK 



The above picture represents a woods operation among the Allegheny mountains, near Lanesville, West 

 Virginia. An inch and a quarter cable carries the logs 2,000 feet across a deep valley to the logging road. 

 Such territory could pot be worked by any of the old-time methods of hauling 

 is too rough. 



villi oxen. The ground 



