22 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



January 



It may be that the only practicable 

 descent from a line of hills is through a 

 narrow, rocky, water- washed ravine. 

 The foreman will then have to blast 

 away some of the stone, using the debris 

 and corduroy to fill the spaces between 

 the rocks. 



The grade must always be gentle, the 

 track not one-sided, the curves long and 

 easy, and the route the shortest possible, 

 though it may be better to go a half a 

 mile further around than to have a long 

 or steep slope which a loaded team must 

 climb. To fulfill all of these conditions 

 requires no little ingenuity and actual 

 engineering instinct on the part of the 

 foreman. At the cuttings the road forks, 

 with a branch leading to each consider- 

 able part of the works. 



At a convenient point alongside each 

 branch road in the cuttings is con- 

 structed askidway, which means simply 

 a pair of big wooden rails, usually logs, 

 laid parallel and at right angles to the 

 road. The end next to the road is a little 

 higher than the other, so that a sled can 

 draw up opposite the skidway and have 

 its load of logs rolled on it from the side. 



In this way much of the hardest work, 

 which is moving the log from the stump 

 to the road, is obviated, since probably 

 no tree is more than a quarter of a mile 

 distant from a skidwav. 



The camps and stables are built at 

 the same time the road construction is 

 going on. All of this work must be 

 completed before snow or severe frost. 

 For several weeks the woods crew have 

 been busy in the timber felling, swamp- 

 ing, and skidding and already the skid- 

 ways are piled high with logs ready to 

 be hauled to the river. A tree comes 

 crashing down ; the dead and living 

 limbs are swiftly lopped from its trunk, 

 and the men who felled it measure off 

 the log lengths with a 4-foot stick, and 

 soon saw the merchantable part into 

 logs. If the country we are consider- 

 ing is Wisconsin, and the ground is still 

 free from snow, a team of horses drags 

 3, 4, or 5 logs into a pile, all lying par- 

 allel, by means of a log chain and a 

 great pair of tongs, similar to ice tongs, 

 which grips each log, usually at the 

 larger end, as they drag more easily 

 Then comes another 

 a single pair of heavy 

 feet in diameter, fitted 

 with a stout pole or tongue. A chain 

 is slipped around the pile of logs about 

 a third the way from the end which is 

 to be foremost. The wheels are drawn 

 astride of the pile at the same point, 

 the team facing forward. 



The traces are unhooked and the 

 tongue disengaged from the neck yoke 



butt foremost, 

 team drawing 

 wheels 7 to 9 



i.or.s ox THR SKIDWAV 



