710 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



It is interesting to compare the prices of spruce for a 

 series of years in order to observe the rise in value of 

 this wood. Boston and New York are the chief spruce 

 marketing points, and the wholesale prices quoted 



A LOGGING CAMP IN THE SPRUCE REGION 



H , ,K r .Vj'^ mP 5 we "i built ' P'e r spruce logs roofed with hand-split cedar shingles. Now camps are roofed 



' iber. They are usually divided into three 

 are connected by covered passages called 



-'" www were aum 01 pine or spruce logs rooted with hand-s,.... 



tar paper and are frequently made of hardwood logs or rough lumber. They are usually divided into three 

 i. kitchen and dining-room, a bunk house and a barn. They - *- J ' 



Kctioni 

 dingle*. 



in the foregoing table refer to one market or the other. 

 The English colonists came into contact with the 

 >pruce when settlements were made along the coast of 

 Maine. They started to cut and 

 export timber almost immedi- 

 ately, and here lumbering in 

 America as an organized indus- 

 try had its origin. It was in the 

 forests of the Saco and Andro- 

 scoggin river basins that snow- 

 logging and river driving were 

 first developed (the earliest or- 

 ganized method of cutting and 

 transporting large numbers of 

 logs to a distant mill). It was 

 here that the first saw mill in 

 America was operated (at York, 

 Maine, in 1623). Yet it was 

 white pine rather than spruce 

 which was sought. For more 

 than 200 years spruce was not 

 considered as a timber tree. As 

 time went on loggers exhausted 

 the pine lower down the streams 

 and moved further and further 

 back, the pine becoming less and 

 less abundant and the spruce 

 more and more. Then, when 

 Maine and New York were 



Maine no longer could justly call herself the Pine Tree 

 State. So the lumbermen turned their attention to the 

 hitherto despised spruce. It was not till 1845 that spruce 

 was cut and marketed and it was in 1861 that spruce first 

 topped the pine in cut at Bangor 

 and probably in the whole State. 

 Since then, as the saying goes, 

 " spruce is king." 



As time has gone on newer 

 systems of logging have been 

 introduced in other sections. 

 The logging railroad has largely 

 supplanted the river for trans- 

 porting logs. Steam skidders, 

 haulers, and cableways have 

 threatened the supremacy of ani- 

 mals in the woods. So the old- 

 time system of logging devel- 

 oped at the edge of the spruce 

 region now seems almost primi- 

 tive, yet it is still the accepted 

 method in that region, where it 

 has been carried to a high state 

 of efficiency. True, improve- 

 ments have been introduced, 

 saws have displaced axes for 

 felling and cutting up timber, 

 horses have largely displaced 

 cattle for hauling logs, and in some places steam log 

 haulers mounted on sleds and caterpillar tractors have 

 partly displaced horses. Great improvements have been 



A RED SPRUCE LOG JAM 



jj.loSiJ: up h :nd1a^s?a U ram M >ofme f r1y' j I a m S s ^r't' T *" P * * ^ream the rest behind 

 ..ve. were fos, at this ha^ardous^^r/a^ gene^y Iti^^^ Cant - h kS ^ m " y 





