LOGGING IN THE DOUGLAS FIR REGION. 



57 



ure per horse. A team on a road of this character consisted of from 

 5 to 10 yoke of oxen or from 4 to 14 horses. 



The first patent on power skidding machinery in the United States 

 was granted in 1883, and covered an overhead cableway system to 

 get logs out of potholes and swampy places. It was tried out in the 

 cypress forests of North Carolina, with the machines mounted on 

 scows and jfloated in the bayous and sloughs. It did not completely 

 solve the problem, since its range was limited to TOO or 800 feet. 

 A ground yarding system was operated in a Louisiana swamp in 

 1889. It consisted of two large drums and an engine and boiler 

 mounted on a scow, from which what in effect was an endless cable 

 passed out into the forest for a distance of half a mile. This later 

 developed into the system used on pull boats. 



Fig. 14. — Yarding engine and sled. 



Power yarding was first used in the Douglas fir forests of the 

 Pacific coast in 1890, or one or two years before, in connection with 

 a ground rope system. One vertical-windlass and one link-motion 

 vertical engine, attached to an upright boiler was mounted on a sled, 

 from which a single line was passed into the woods by horsepower. 

 The spool was driven directly by a pinion and wheel, both of which 

 were bevel cored. This system was first used in California about 

 1885. 



Power yarding was superior to animal yarding from the begin- 

 ning, and its popularity resulted in comparatively few horses or oxen 

 being used in the Douglas fir region by 1900, The gradual evolu- 

 tion of logging engines has given the industry the compound-geared, 

 ground-yarding engine and the long-range, high-speed roading 

 engine, both of which seem to have reached perfection, also fairly 

 satisfactory overhead and high-lead logging engines, which without 

 doubt are susceptible of further improvement. 



