FORESTS OF POETO EICO. 45 



tor may be given the material for clearing up the land or he may pay 

 the owner a stipulated amount per sack of charcoal yielded. 



Often the charcoaling is not even done '^by your leave," since it is 

 an adjunct to ^'conuco" farming. When the squatter finds a piece 

 of woodland which he wants to cultivate he may first cut such mate- 

 rial as is suitable and make charcoal from it, or a charcoal burner 

 may cut over a piece of land for charcoal without having an intention 

 of subsequent cultivation. The public lands have by this process 

 been largely despoiled of their forest growth. 



Lumbering. 



As an organized business lumbering hardly exists at all. Probably 

 the nearest approach to it is in the Sierra de Luquillo, where a few 

 lumbermen or woodcutters are to be found. They own their own 

 implenients and log on contract; that is to say, if any one wants a 

 piece of ausubo for an ox yoke or bull cart or any other special mate- 

 rial these men will go in and get it out for him. Their method of 

 lumbering is a very gradual process of culling. Having found a suit- 

 able tree, they fell it and cut it into logs of the desired length. The 

 log is squared with an adz, then a knob is fashioned at one end, to 

 which a rope may later be made fast to drag it out by. Finally the 

 log is placed on a rudely constructed scaffolding of poles erected on a 

 hillside and sawed by the world-old pit-saw method. If they may be 

 skidded directly from the pit, the planks are not sawed through the 

 whole length of the log, but the log is left intact for a short distance 

 back from the knob end to facilitate handling. Otherwise each 

 plank is entirely severed from the log and carried out by hand to a 

 place accessible to oxen. There the separate planks are assembled 

 as they were in the log, a rope is made fast to the knob, and they are 

 skidded the rest of the way to their destination or to where they can 

 be loaded on a cart. The smaller logs and pole and post timbers are 

 skidded singly or sometimes several at a time. 



Skidding is accomplished by oxen on slopes where such work seems 

 impossible. Grade appears to receive scant consideration, the skid- 

 ding trails in places descending straight down the slope. Frequently 

 these are hollowed out, whether intentionally or by the wearing of 

 the logs is not evident, and stakes are driven at the side, where they 

 turn sharply around a shoulder or follow obliquely down the hillside. 

 After a time erosion supplements the wearing of the logs and the 

 trails become so deep in places that they have to be abandoned. 



Wood-working Industries. 



With this system of lumbering there is, of course, no need for 

 sawmills.^ What few miUs there are — located principally in the 



1 Flinter (see Bibliography) reported one water sawmill on the island in 1830 near Camuy. 



