124 THE BOOK OF FORESTRY 
is ready for the crew, the men are brought in and 
the actual cutting of the timber commences. <A tree is 
felled by making an undercut with an ax, on the side 
toward which the tree is desired to fall. Then the 
tree is sawed down with a cross-cut saw, starting from 
the side opposite the notch. Low stumps are the rule 
in modern lumbering, because there is a saying among 
woodsmen that a foot in the stump is worth four in 
the top, meaning that on account of the larger diameter 
at the lower end, more lumber can be sawn from the 
butt end than from the tip. So accurate are some of 
the expert choppers that it is possible for them to drop 
a tree within a few feet of where it is desired and to 
watch a French Canadian flake out huge chips of 
fragrant spruce wood with no apparent effort, is a 
study in efficiency. 
After the tree has been felled, the limbs are then cut 
off, which is called “swamping,” and the log “bucked” 
or sawed into appropriate log lengths. The logs are 
then skidded, which means transporting them to the 
haul road, where they will be picked up by a sled or 
wagon and hauled out over the main haul. Skidding 
is ordinarily done with horses having a pair of tongs 
or a chain attached to the traces. The chain is hitched 
to the log and then it is dragged to the edge of the 
skid road. When the logs accumulate they are piled 
along the roadside to await actual hauling out in the 
winter season. 
After the first real snowstorm the hauling com- 
mences, and upon the amount of snowfall to a large 
degree depends the success of many a logging job. 
Not only does snow make a splendid surface upon 
which a good team of horses can pull a large load of 
logs, but the snow serves to smooth out any hollows 
