696 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



crashes to the ground Without any apparent effort, 

 the ' fallers ' have controlled the direction of its fall 

 almost to a foot. 



By Courtrsy of Country Life of England. 



CANADIAN STYLE OF FELLING TREES 



Then has arisen, since England started cutting her forests, a good-natured controversy as 

 to which style of tree cutting is most effective the Canadian. Portuguese or Irish. 



" Next, without any ado, half a dozen 

 ' swampers ' set to work with the axe, clearing 

 the limbs and straightening up the tree. Simul- 

 taneously a ' fitter,' with a wooden rod, divides 

 the stem in suitable lengths, marking the cutting 

 |>oints with a notch ; while two other men, one 

 carrying a paint j>ot, measure the tree, enter the 

 size in a book, and mark the stump and the butt 

 of the severed trunk with a blob of red paint 

 to show that their work is done. Sawyers then 

 cut the stem according to the ' fitter's ' marking, 

 and the sections are ready to go to the mill. 

 They are dragged there by horses over deeply 

 scored ' trails ' and ' tloopways,' and take their 

 turn to come under the saw. 



" The mill itself is a stoutly biiilt structure, 

 made of timber cut and prepared on the spot, 

 the saws and engines coming from Canada. 

 It is practically a raised platform covered by an 

 iron roof, but open at the sides. A log to be 

 sawn is rolled into position on a ' carriage,' 

 which moves backwards and forwards to carrv 

 it through a circular saw. Two men, standing on 

 the carriage, control its movements and the position 

 of the log by a number of levers. Opposite them 

 stands the most important man of all, the ' sawyer,' 



whose trained eye sees at a glance what can be 

 made of this or that log. The hum of the engine 

 and the screech of the saw would drown his voice, 

 so he gives his decision by signs. As the car- 

 riage brings a log back through the saw with 

 the bark removed, he will hold up one finger 

 or two, and the ' setter ' on the carriage, by move- 

 ment of a lever, adjusts the log so that the next 

 cut shall be one inch or two inches thick. 



" It is all done without a pause. For hours 

 the saw screeches and throws off a spray of saw- 

 dust as it slices up the logs that a short while 

 before were splendid living trees, and all the 

 while other saws, trimming the edges of the 

 boards and cutting off the ends, join in the chorus. 

 Is it surprising that the daughter of the keeper of 

 the wood was reduced to tears when she stood 

 by the mill ? " 



Of the uses of lumber in war, Country Life 

 of England says: 



" War has turned out to be a great consumer 

 of lumber. Passing by for the moment the wooden 

 huts and wooden carts for lodging and trans- 

 port, the miscellaneous crowd of wooden boxes, 

 cases and implements fashioned for equipment, 

 how dependent on wood is the soldier when he 

 takes the field! It did not take him long to 

 learn that in a country like Flanders, with modern 

 guns pointing at them, trenches must be deep 

 to be of the slightest use, and that if they were 

 deep would not stand wet weather unless propped 

 with wood. Conjure up a vision of the wood 

 being employed in the trenches, not of one army 



By Courtesy of Country Life of England. 



THE PORTUGUESE WAY OF CUTTING DOWN A TREE 

 The Portuguese contingent of timbermen in England was imported from Bragos, Mai 

 the E Tish fy " fellows and good workmen and have become prime favorites w 



with 



only, but of many, and it will be understood that the 

 timber swallowing power of the coalpit as compared with 

 that of the trench is as the swallow of the minnow com- 

 pared to the swallow of the salmon. And yet the trench 



