178 OUR NATIONAL FORESTS 



boards were cut they were placed in a flume in 

 which there was a strong stream of water. In this 

 they floated about 40 miles to a town in the valley 

 below directly into the company's lumber yard. 



In the Rocky Mountains one of the main forest 

 products derived from the National Forests is rail- 

 road ties. On the particular operation with which 

 the writer is familiar the Government had sold to 

 a tie operator about 3,000,000 railroad ties under 

 a long term contract. This tie operator had a 

 large contract with a railroad company. The area 

 of the sale, several thousand acres, was divided or 

 surveyed into long strips each 100 to 150 feet wide 

 and from one to one and a half miles long. A large 

 camp and commissary was established on the area. 

 There were about 100 tie choppers and each man 

 was assigned to a strip. On these strips the trees to 

 be cut were marked by a Forest officer. Trees too 

 small to make ties were left as a basis for a future 

 tie operation in from forty to fifty years. 



The tie choppers usually worked alone. They 

 first felled the tree with a saw, cut the lower limbs 

 off, and marked ofi^ the ties on the bark to see how 

 many ties could be cut from the tree. The tree 

 was then "scored" with an ax on both sides in order 



