

Lumbering in Colorado 59 



be exceptionally quick and handy is turning logs on the carriage. 

 The fireman need know only enough about engineering to keep 

 up sufficient steam. He must cut his own wood. When the 

 mill is equipped with a cut off saw he uses this, but if not he 

 must use a hand saw. The off-bearer handles the lumber and 

 slabs as they come from the saw. Usually one man is sufficient 

 to sort and pile the lumber. When the mill is not equipped 

 with a sawdust blower, an extra man is necessary. In addition 

 to this work he dumps the slabs if they are disposed of by means 

 of a car and track. 



In a very few cases there is an edger and planing mill in 

 connection with the portable saw mill. The slabs are some- 

 times utilized for mine-logging. Only the largest and best are 

 used, however. They are cut up into four foot lengths, ricked 

 up, and hauled to the railroad during the winter, usually after 

 other operations stop. There is only a small profit in them and 

 in most cases no use is made of the slabs except for fuel. 



All sizes of boards and plank are sawed, depending to a 

 large extent upon the demand at the market point. There is 

 always an exceptionally large output of small stuff such as 1 

 x 4's and 1 x 6's because of the great number of small logs. 

 There is very little sale for this material and when this is the case 

 it remains piled in the mill yard. The amount of cull lumber is 

 large because of the poor and defective nature of the timber. 

 The best of this is sold for sheeting but a great deal is never 

 hauled out of the mill yard. 



The lumber seldom remains in the yard long after it is sawed. 

 Enough men and teams are employed to haul the daily cut. 

 Hauling is done on wagons in the summer and on sleds in the 

 winter. In either case four horses are used. Because of the 

 fact that the snow fall increases with the elevation, and as it 

 stays on much longer at the higher altitudes, a transfer from sled 

 to wagon is necessary in the fall or spring at a point somewhere 

 between the mill and the shipping point. The size of the load 

 depends upon the condition of the road. The load is never 

 reckoned in board feet but always in the number of inches high. 

 The maximum load for this district is seventy-two inches. Com- 

 puted in board feet it amounts to nearly five thousand feet. For 

 the average mill, three teams are necessary to haul the lumber. 

 In some cases the lumber hauling is contracted usually at so 

 much per M feet. The price varies with the distance to the 

 railway and the condition of the road. On a trip and a half haul 

 the price ranges from $2.00 to $3.00 per M feet. At the rail- 

 road the lumber is loaded directly into cars when they can be 

 obtained. Flat cars are most commonly used. Twenty-two 

 thousand feet is considered an average load. 



