9 



timber for framing, and. in consequence desire long logs. Forty feet 

 is a good sawing length, and a portion of the largest and straightest 

 timber should be fifty feet or over. This meant that the logs were 

 cut the mxaimum length that could be driven in the streams. Now, 

 a spruce log two feet through at the butt and 40 feet long was heavy 

 to handle. One horse could not drag it on ordinary ground, and the 

 men could not handle it with any degree of carefulness. 



In the virgin forests a double team and a sled from 4 to 5 feet wide 

 was used for yarding. This type of rig and the length of the logs 

 required a broad and comparatively straight road, put through re- 

 gardless of consequences. The expense of swamping, too, made it 

 hard to treat the country in the detail that seemed best for conserva- 

 tive logging. Local conditions had a large influence on the felling. 

 Big trees standing near a road had to be let down close to its line in 

 order that the logs might be easily loaded, and this frequently entailed 

 sacrifices of small timber. If a tree stood away from the road the 

 usual plan of the choppers was to fell the top across it, cut what stuff 

 stood between the butt and the road, and roll the butt log in. Fre- 

 quently this process meant the sacrifice of promising young stuff. 

 This was the more true when deep snow lay on the ground, and small 

 stuff had to be cut and laid crosswise under the logs to prevent them 

 from burying. Thorough logging in thick stands left the country 

 pretty nearly a desert. In good mixed stands it was found by trial 

 that about a third of the young growth was destroyed by the pro- 

 cess of lumbering. 



BUNCH AND STRIPWISE CUTTING. 



Conservative logging, under these circumstances, to be cheap and 

 practical had to be largely stripwise cutting. Groups and lines of 

 big trees were taken out and of necessity a large share of the under- 

 sized timber that stood among them. Between these strips were 

 left. These consisted chiefly of undersized trees, but also frequently 

 contained scattering trees of good size. No sound dead trees or 

 windfalls were left. By these methods, of course, tree -by- tree 

 selection was seldom possible. 



LINES FOR IMPROVEMENT. 

 THROUGH PERSONNEL. 



In any improvement in the logging organization the important 

 influence to reach was clearly the foreman. He was in the best posi- 

 tion to lay out the work as it came along — the man, therefore, who 

 had to be trained and to whom directions should be issued. At best 

 the forester could be on a job but once in a couple of weeks and there- 

 fore could guide the operations only in a general way. 



[Cir. 131] 



