196 FORESTRY IN LITHUANIA. 



is time to put the primitive harness, generally made of 

 rags and rope, on his poor half-starved horses, and go to 

 his day's work again. 



' The catting and driving is done in this way. Every 

 peasant has his axe ; he fells his tree, clears off all knots 

 and branches, lays it on his sledge, and drives it to the 

 river. Thus millions of trees are brought down these two 

 rivers in the course of the winter. 



' The kind of wood grown here is a sort of redwood fir, 

 sometimes also whitewood. The fir tree grows very fast. 

 A fir tree which requires 120 years and more to ripen in 

 the north of Europe matures here in 80 years. It is, 

 however, coarse, sometimes sappy, and contains a mass of 

 resin and other matters, which makes the smallest knot 

 of a bright red colour. To see the trees standing in the 

 forest is a fine sight when they are straight, and grown 

 high without branches ; but cut them down and the charm 

 is gone. Masses of timber, quantities of firewood, chiefly 

 birch, elm, alder, beech, and other kinds of wood, are 

 forwarded down the river during the entire spring and 

 summer ; most of it to the Black Sea, but a small part of 

 it is taken up by river to the Baltic, Most of the logs 

 are formed into large rafts. A hole is made in the end 

 of each log, arid they are tied together with bands of 

 willow. This is a clumsy and an expensive way of con- 

 structing rafts, besides wasting two to three feet of each 

 log. Two or three rafts are then tied together with 

 willow bands, a little wooden hut is erected, sometimes 

 hardly larger than a dog kennel, on which is a tiny pole 

 with a bit of red or blue cloth as a flag. The three or 

 four men who are in charge of this raft make it their 

 home for the six or seven weeks (sometimes more) that 

 they are on their way to the Black Sea. 



' Another way of transporting different kinds of wood 

 down the rivers is in large lighters, sometimes called 

 Berliner, sometimes Barkar. The former are very 

 strongly built, but the latter are of enormous planks 60 to 

 80 feet long, large enough to load 200 to 300 standards, 



