178 OUR NATIONAL FORESTS 



boards were cut they were placed in a flume in 

 which there was a strong stream of water. In this 

 they floated about 40 miles to a town in the valley 

 below directly into the company's lumber yard. 



In the Rocky Mountains one of the main forest 

 products derived from the National Forests is rail- 

 road ties. On the particular operation with which 

 the writer is familiar the Government had sold to 

 a tie operator about 3,000,000 railroad ties under 

 a long term contract. This tie operator had a 

 large contract with a railroad company. The area 

 of the sale, several thousand acres, was divided or 

 surveyed into long strips each 100 to 150 feet wide 

 and from one to one and a half miles long. A large 

 camp and commissary was established on the area. 

 There were about 100 tie choppers and each man 

 was assigned to a strip. On these strips the trees to 

 be cut were marked by a Forest officer. Trees too 

 small to make ties were left as a basis for a future 

 tie operation in from forty to fifty years. 



The tie choppers usually worked alone. They 

 first felled the tree with a saw, cut the lower limbs 

 off, and marked off the ties on the bark to see how 

 many ties could be cut from the tree. The tree 

 was then "scored" with an ax on both sides in order 



