A STUDY OF THE EEDWOOD. 



19 



WHERE THE LUMBER GOES. 



I'hc market i.s uncertain and liiiiited. Redwood must depend for its 

 sale on the demand of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the southern 

 counties of the State. Occasional cargoes go to Australia, Honolulu, 

 South America, and the Orient; but this outlet is restricted by the 

 ' necessity for costly reshipment at San Francisco, since seagoing 

 vessels can not load everywhere on the coast. For five years prices 

 have remained $11 to |13 for rough, and $18 to $25 for clear, merchant- 

 able Redwood. This leaves little room for profit. It would appear 

 that so useful a wood should find a ready sale in the East; but at present 

 Eastern buyers do not appreciate its good qualities, and high freight 

 rates have helped to keep it out of Eastern markets. 



DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERING METHODS. 



Redwood lumbering is expensive and difficult. Steam is used 

 throughout the process. On the flats and bottoms, where the trees 

 average from 5 to 15 feet in diameter, the stand is very dense, and to 

 get Redwood out of the forest without breaking other trees is not an 

 easy task. Choppers who can save a good percentage of the wood in 

 the trees felled must be experienced men. If the tree is not felled so 

 as to strike throughout most of its length at the same time, the brittle 

 wood will break and splinter badl}^ To prevent this, a "lay-out" is 

 usually leveled for the tree to fall on. Even then the whole of the 

 crown and at least a fourth of the bole are demolished and strewn upon 

 the ground. The mass of broken branches may lie shoulder deep, and 

 the logs must be got out from this tangled wreckage. 



After the choppers have done their work, the " ringers" and "peel- 

 ers" follow. They peel the bark from the logs and let it lie with the 

 l)roken branches, which soon dry and are then set afire. When bark 

 and l)ranches are consumed the logs lie free, and the logger can put 

 sawyers and swampers to work, and move in his yarding donkey engine 

 and rigging. Many small trees used by the yarding crew to set blocks 

 are iinavoidably girdled; the rest are in constant danger from the 

 moving logs, which work this way and that, plow into the earth, and 

 butt into the .young trees until scarcely" one of them is left unharmed. 



After the yarding crew has done its work the log's progress to mill 

 is over land already slashed and burned. Three or four logs are 

 coupled together, attached to an endless cable, and hauled to the rail- 

 road track by a bull-donkey engine, which stands on a landing at the 

 end of the skid road and winds in a wire rope on a drum. Then, with 

 block and tackle, worked either by the train locomotive or a smaller 

 donkey engine, the logs are loaded upon trucks and hauled to the mill 

 pond.' (Pis. Viand VII.) 



