26 



PKACTICAL FOKESTKY. 



Care is needed in skidding not to rub or tear the bark from valuable 

 standing trees or to break the young growth down, for much harm 

 is quickly done in this way. Promising young trees are often cut 

 because it is easier to use them for corduroy or skids or for other 

 purposes ia the logging than to take others less straight or less con- 

 veniently at hand, or because they are somewhat in the way, or even 

 from habit, when it would really be easier to let them alone. A very 

 little care in preserving young growth makes an astonishing difference 

 in the future value of a forest. 



Transportation. — After the skidding the logs may be transported 

 to the sawmill in many different ways. Sometimes they are loaded 



Fig. 16. — Hauling loblolly pine. South Carolina. 



on sleds and drawn over carefully made ice roads to a logging rail- 

 road or to the bank of a stream. When the stream is not swift or 

 deep enough to carry the logs of itself, splash dams are built, in which 

 great quantities of water are held back for a time. When such a dam 

 is opened the water is set free and great numbers of logs may be 

 driven far down the, stream by the sudden flood. In larger streams 

 the logs are sometimes made into rafts, or they may be driven singly 

 down the river. The log drivers who do this work learn to balance 

 themselves on the floating, rolling logs, and walk on them almost as 

 easily as on the solid ground. Sometimes locomotives drag the logs 

 behind them over the ties, or they are hauled on cars which run over 



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