1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



1 1 



SCENE ON MENOMINEE RIVER AT MARINETTE, WIS. FORMERLY FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS 

 SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION FEET OF PINE WAS DRIVEN DOWN THIS STREAM EACH SPRING. 



at the mill is supposed to detect it and 

 credit the proper firm. 



In the old days solid citizens were ac- 

 customed to feel uneasy for several days 

 after the drive came in. Such a visita- 

 tion has been known to result in the 

 entire demolition of a thriving young 

 town. It was no light matter, this sud- 

 den arrival of scores of hardy, resolute 

 men, with enormous appetites, un- 

 quenchable thirsts, five months of pent- 

 up enthusiasm, and a winter's pay in 

 possession. The police smiled indul- 

 gently when capers were cut, their organ- 

 ization being the result of a process of 

 natural selection. Such of their num- 

 ber as had declined to smile on previous 

 occasions became unable to act longer 

 as police. Some of them were unable 

 even to smile. 



Today the drivers do not "take the 

 town apart " quite as freely as formerly, 

 but the arrival of the drive is still anevent 

 of the year. The drivers are popular 

 with several classes of the people, and 

 they know it. Not only does their un- 

 spent pay account for part of their cor- 

 dial reception, but the young women 

 seem to approve of them as men returned 

 from a hard-fought campaign, and they 

 are the heroes of boyhood in sawmill 

 towns. Every youngster's ambition is 

 to " birl " (?. e., cause a floating log to 

 revolve by treading it) as the local 

 champion does, and to that end he stags 

 off his overalls and practices slyly, at 

 the imminent risk of drowning, where 

 the big sticks lie in the ponds at the saw- 

 mills. Their fathers and elder brothers 

 trained in the same school. 



