242 
BULLETIN 711, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
provements certain equipment, such as boom sticks, boom chains, 
peavies, axes, and pike poles, are required. 
After the logs have been unloaded into the boom different species 
and grades are poled to different parts of the sorting pocket. This 
operation is not a distinct operation in the sense that all logs are 
sorted before rafting begins, since sorting and rafting may be con- 
sidered as occurring at the same time. The rafters then string boom 
sticks across the far end and along both sides of the rafting pockets. 
Logs of approximately equal lengths are then poled or floated clown 
the rafting pockets and stowed parallel to each other in the far end. 
Each row is known as a "tier," and two tiers usually constitute a 
" section." Manifestly all the logs in a section can not at all times 
run parallel with the outside boom sticks, some of them being placed 
/?Arr/nG 
s 
/?Arr/MG 
if 
^7 
pocfcerrs 
1/ 
$/ 
POCKETS 
P/LJ/VG 
SAW l*OGS 
i 
7 \ 
/* 
1 V 
• 
if 
£/... 
\ ^2 
// 
J <i 
Fig. 83. — Booming and rafting wofks. 
at right angles to these sticks. The main consideration is to place 
the logs so that the raft will be as compact as possible. As soon as 
a section is filled, a boom stick, called a swifter, is placed across the 
end at right angles to the outside boom sticks in order to keep the 
logs closely packed. New sections are then made up in the same 
manner, 10 to 14 sections constituting a raft. This applies to tide- 
water booms, where the work can be carried on only during a favor- 
able tide. On large streams the procedure is practically the same. 
The cost of a rafting and sorting works depends for the most 
part on the capacity, the method of sorting the logs, and the spacing 
of the piles. In the case of the works shown in figure 82, the cost 
amounted to $1,000. The total number of piles driven was 250. The 
piling, which averaged about 32 feet in length, cost 6J cents per 
linear foot or $2 per pile. The cost of driving was $2 per pile. 
