8 NORTHERN SPRUCE TYPE 



skill in this work. In fact they are generally able to log more 

 cheaply than the lumber companies themselves because their 

 supervision is closer, their overhead expenses are small, they 

 make scant allowance for depreciation or interest on investment 

 and are content with small returns per thousand feet. In the 

 southern spruce regions conditions are different. Seldom have 

 the local inhabitants acquired the experience necessary to con- 

 tract for themselves so that the lumber companies are forced to 

 run their own camps. For simplicity's sake a contract job in the 

 Maine woods will be taken as the type and after it has been 

 described local variations in other parts of the country pointed out. 

 Assume then that Bill Jones contracted in 1914 to yard on the 

 river bank of the nearest drivable stream two million feet of spruce 

 and balsam. Since the haul from the stump to the yard was 

 only four miles he agreed to do it for $5 per M. He needed a crew 

 of 60 men and started felling by October i in order to get the 

 timber down and skidded before the deep snows came. For his 

 labor he hired his neighbors as far as possible and then filled in 

 with French Canadians who came south for the winter after the 

 Canadian harvest had been garnered. A picked crew of choppers 

 was first sent into the woods to build camps and clean out the 

 roads. Then the main crew came in. It was divided up into 

 choppers, teamsters for the skidding teams, tote teamsters, barn 

 tenders, a cook and cookees, a blacksmith, a scaler, camp clerk. 



The first job was to fell the timber and bunch it up for hauling 

 on two sleds. The methods employed varied with the steepness 

 of the ground. On level and moderate slopes ordinary skidding 

 practices were followed. A single horse or a pair bunched the 

 logs on to skidways from which they could be rolled onto two 

 sleds. On steep ground the procedure was different. Two 

 sleds could not be used to advantage. The only safe way was 

 to drag the log out on a single bobsled with only one end of the 

 logs up. Bare ground was preferable to snow because slower and 

 hence safer. Furthermore, the spruce commonly stood so 

 densely on such steep slopes that it was easy to make up a bob- 

 sled load by merely rolUng the logs onto the sled without any 

 preliminary bunching. In fact in many places the timber was 



