FORESTS 



FORESTS 



337 



wheels one to several logs are suspended, the rear 

 end being allowed to drag. 



Roads. — Fairly good roads are made through the 

 woods for a single crop, because a large number of 

 heavy loads must be hauled over some of them. 

 Swampers cut out the underbrush and clear away 

 obstructions, after which grading is done 

 if necessary. 



Miscellaneous means. — In some mountain- 

 ous regions, where rocks do not interfere, 

 timber is allowed to slide down the incline 

 on the bare ground. In the extreme West 

 and Northwest, huge logs are dragged on 

 the ground, rollers being supplied to con- 

 vert sliding-friction into rolling - friction. 

 Cattle, a means of power which has been 

 largely used in harvesting crops, are used 

 for this purpose because of their strength 

 and convenience. In the South, what is 

 called "drumming" is employed to a limited 

 extent. This appliance consists of a large 

 cylinder made to revolve, and which winds 

 up a rope or cable, the outer end of which 

 is fastened to the log. A much more pow- 

 erful and practical method is the steam skidder, 

 which, by means of pulleys and a cable, gathers 

 the logs from a few thousand feet on either side 

 of the track on which it moves and places them on 

 the cars, if need be. Temporary tracks of either 

 narrow or standard gauge are laid into the woods 

 and camps, and when the timber in one place has 

 been harvested they are taken up and relaid in an- 

 other place. These are contrivances for short 

 hauls to get the logs to the steam railway, on 

 which they are placed and transported longer dis- 

 tances to the mill. 



A great deal of lumber is now kiln-dried either 

 after air-drying for a time or fresh from the saw, 

 thereby making it fit for use much sooner than by 

 air-drying alone. When the lumber is finally ready 

 for the wholesale or retail dealer, it is again trans- 



ported to the most likely sale-place, so that in any 

 up-to-date market we find spruce from Maine, pop- 

 lar (whitewood) from the hard-wood belt between 

 North and South, yellow pine and cypress from the 

 South, cedar and redwood from the West. The 

 best grades of American lumber are shared with 



Fig. 479. Portable sawmfll. 



Fig. 480. Stationary sawmill. 



other countries. The poorer grades are found on 

 the local country yards. 



Waste in lumbering. 



Some thirty years ago only about 30 per cent of 

 the available timber of a stand was placed on the 

 yard. The best and most convenient was taken 

 and the remainder left to grow, burn or decay as 

 chance might determine. It did not pay in those 

 days to be saving. With increased value, however, 

 more care is now exercised to cut the crop closer. 

 Some timber-land has been cut over for the third 

 or fourth time, each time all that was worth har- 

 vesting being taken. Virgin stands are now worked 

 very close in clean cutting where timber is valu- 

 able. All logs down to four inches at the top are 

 taken to the mill, where there are two sets of saws. 



As the logs come into 

 the mill, the better 

 ones are thrown to 

 one saw and the 

 poorer to the other. 

 The better logs nearly 

 all make lumber, while 

 the poorer ones are 

 mostly cut into four- 

 foot lengths from 

 which is made wood 

 alcohol, acetic acid, 

 charcoal and the like. 

 In hard -woods, the 

 proportion is about 

 one cord of wood to 

 each thousand feet 

 of lumber. 



Where timber is 

 valuable for fuel, the 

 tops and limbs are 

 worked into cord- 

 wood to supply local 

 demand, and the 



B22 



