FORESTERS AND LUMBERMEN HOME FROM FRANCE 



1101 



done. One of the mill hands carries the sawdust away 

 in a basket. The mill is operated by a ten or twelve 

 horse power engine. Ordinarily about four people are 

 employed at such a mill, and they produce from two to 

 three thousand feet of lumber per day. Many of the 

 workers are women. In the woods, the logs are usually 

 cut in lengths less than ten feet long to facilitate handling 

 them at the mill and loading them upon the two-wheel 

 carts which haul them to the mill. The logs are peeled 

 in the woods and are given a chance to dry out to some 

 extent ; this lightens the logs for handling and also 

 makes sawing easier. 



An American notes at once the close utilization of the 

 timber and the large amount of human rather than me- 

 chanical labor used in French operations. The very high 



which can be worked hard and forced to yield a large 

 daily production ; and these were days when a big output 

 was wanted, even at the cost of some raw material. 



The first American mill to operate in the Landes was 

 a ten-M mill which started sawing lumber at the Bellevue 

 camp on the last day of 1917. In addition to the head, 

 saw, this mill was equipped with edger and trim saws ; 

 there was a blower to remove the sawdust. When this 

 mill caught its stride it cut an average of twenty-seven 

 thousand feet of lumber in the two ten-hour shifts. Its 

 record cut was thirty-nine thousand seven hundred feet 

 in one twenty-hour day. One night an accident to the 

 engine stopped the mill ; fortunately there was available 

 a French engine with just about enough power to operate 

 the head saw ; this engine was placed at the end of the 



MAI 



;e logs decked at a m-m American mill in the sand dune country of southwestern France 



timber values and the low labor costs account for this 

 situation. Just before the war, the French forest laborer, 

 if a man, received from sixty cents to a dollar twenty 

 cents, depending upon his skill, for ten to eleven hours' 

 work per day; he lived at home and furnished his own 

 food. The rate of pay for women was much lower. Dur- 

 ing the war a muleteer was locally considered a "veri- 

 table millionaire;" he demanded three dollars and a half 

 for a day's work for himself, his team of mules and cart, 

 whereas before he had received only half as much. 



The sawmills manufactured in the United States and 

 sent to France for the use of the forest troops were in 

 three standard sizes ; the bolter mill for small, short logs 

 had a capacity of five thousand feet of lumber in ten 

 hours; the "ten-M" mill had a rated capacity of ten 

 thousand feet in ten hours ; and the "twenty-M" mill was 

 designed to cut twenty thousand feet in a ten hour shift. 

 All of these mills used circular saws, which cut a far 

 heavier saw curf than the French mills; it is charac- 

 teristic of Americans to use strong, heavy machinery 



mill, the belt was run across the log deck to the driving 

 pulley of the head saw, and the mill went merrily on for 

 several days, until the regular engine was repaired, cut- 

 ting and edging eighteen thousand feet of lumber per 

 day on the head saw. When this mill finally ran out of 

 timber, the orders were to move it to a tract of timber 

 at Sabres, a place twenty-five miles away ; it was con- 

 sidered that five days was a reasonable time within which 

 to make the move ; but by careful planning and organiza- 

 tion, this mill was sawing lumber once more at Sabres 

 forty-seven hours after the sawdust stopped flying at 

 Bellevue. 



The parts for the twenty-M mills arrived more slowly 

 and it took more time to build them than in the case of 

 the smaller mills. The twenty-M mill at Labroquette, 

 near Pontenx, was the first in its class to operate in 

 France. Two other mills of this size at Bourricos and 

 Aureilhan completed the Pontenx group of mills. April 

 1, 1918, was the first day upon which all four of the mills 

 of the district operated double shift ; on that day 



