LUMBERING IN PINE REGION OF CALIFORNIA. 91 
Lumber is shipped in flumes either loose or in bundles. Ship- 
ment in bundles is the most common, and is adapted to flumes having 
lower grades. The loss of lumber is less than for the other method 
and fewer herders are required. However, the cost of bundling is 
considerable and the clamps must be hauled back to the upper end 
of the flume at a cost of about 1 cent per pound. In either method 
the lumber is graded and sorted roughly and distributed to the dry- 
ing piles and shipping skids, which are located along a number of 
branches feeding into the main flume. In shipping loose in long 
flumes it is necessary to kiln dry boards from yellow pine and white 
fir butts and air dry thick or heavy sugar pine boards. This involves 
a considerable cost for handling in the mill yard and kiln, and loss 
occurs through stain in air drying. Up to the present the same 
practice has been customary in fluming in bundles. Recently, how- 
ever, one company has developed a method of mixing light and 
heavy lumber in each bundle. All lumber may thus be shipped 
immediately after sawing, and air and kiln drying at the mill is 
practically eliminated. 
In shipping loose, the lumber is distributed to various shipping 
skids. The boards are then thrown one at a time into the flume by 
the shippers. 
In bundle shipping the boards are made up in bundles from 10 to 
13 inches thick, bound at each end by iron clamps and wooden 
wedges. The bundles are then thrown into the flume and trams of 
five or six are fastened together with short rope loops. A crew of 
27 men, three men working at each of nine skids, may prepare the 
bundles for a shipment of about 210,000 feet daily. The remainder 
of the shipping crew is made up of three men tying the bundles 
together, one man straightening clamps, one man distributing 
clamps, one man distributing wedges, and one foreman. 
As the bundles pass down the flume they are cared for by herders 
who prevent jams and watch for flume breaks. On a typical opera- 
tion the flume is divided into six-mile sections and two herders are 
assigned to each. With two extra herders on the last half mile the 
herding crew consists of 20 men and a foreman. At the lower end 
the bundles are dumped by hand from slack water by a crew of five 
men. The clamps are then loosened and the boards distributed and 
handled in the yard in the same manner as if the yard were located 
at the sawmill. 
The cost of flume maintenance is considerable. On the long 
flumes a repair crew is engaged all winter, and approximately a 
million feet of lumber is used annually in repairs. The average cost 
is calculated at 80 cents per 1,000 for two flumes 56 and 60 miles in 
length and 65 cents per 1,000 for one 42 miles in length. Exclusive 
of depreciation the average cost of fluming lumber in these long 
