HARVESTING THE FOREST CROP 123 
the North Woods, including Maine, New Hampshire and 
northern New York. The ordinary routine of such a job 
is as follows: 
The summer before the cutting is to begin a camp 
site is selected and a camp is built near the center of 
, the piece of timber that is to be cut the first season. 
Log houses are usually made with shake or tar paper 
roofs and the crevices between the logs well chinked 
with mud or plaster. The camp consists of sev- 
eral buildings and varies in size with the operation 
and number of men to be housed. The bunk house, 
generally large enough to “sleep” fifty or sixty men; 
the cook house and mess hall combined, stable, black- 
smith shanty, and perhaps an extra little cabin for 
the boss and the timekeeper, which may also serve as 
a company store where tobacco, socks, shoe packs, etc., 
may be bought, comprise the average camp. In some 
parts of the country portable houses are used which 
may be picked up and carried to the next camp site 
after all the nearby trees have been cut down. These 
are found chiefly on railroad jobs, while on the horse 
logging job in the North Woods the log cabin is still 
quite common. 
While the structures’ for housing the men and 
sheltering the horses are being erected, the main haul 
and skid roads are being constructed. Logging in a 
hilly country of course requires great care in laying 
out the road system, and the skill which has been 
developed by some of the older logging bosses is of a 
very high order. In fact by eye alone they often lay 
out an entire system of log roads since their long 
experience enables them to choose the low grades 
necessary for economical logging. 
When the camps have been completed and everything 
