AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
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VOLUME XXXIX.-No. 12. NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1880. NEW SERIES—No. 407. 
In many parts of our country the woods are 
scenes of great activities during the winter months. 
It is at this season that most of the logs for lumber 
are cut in the great pine forests of Maine, Michigan, 
and some other States, and afterwards drawn to the 
frozen streams, where, when the ice breaks up, 
they go down on the “ drive,” and are finally made 
into rafts to be floated to the mills. The life in a 
lumber camp is a peculiar one, and to the stranger 
is full of novelty. The ring of the axe, the shout 
of the teamster, the crash of falling trees, and the 
roar of the logs as they are shot down the river 
banks, all give, to the person unaccustomed to the 
clearing of a heavy forest, a strange sense of 
destruction, and for the moment he looks upon 
man as the destroyer. Nothing changes the face 
of the landscape so much as the disappearance of 
a forest, and when this is accomplished in a few 
short winter days, it seems almost as if some giant 
power had been at work: as if a whirlwind had 
passed, and the great trees had been swept away. 
Even in the older portions of the country, where, 
perhaps, the sound of the pioneer’s axe died away 
a hundred or it may be two hundred years ago, the 
“ wood lot” is a busy place, and the seat of much 
of the winter’s hardest work. There is the fire¬ 
wood to cut and draw—enough to last the family 
through a whole year—and a few logs of pine, or 
oak, or whitewood, to be drawn to the mill to fur¬ 
nish lumber for some new farm building, or to 
use in adding to or repairing an old one. There is 
no time like winter for doing this kind of work, 
and there is no labor on the farm that pays better 
to do in season than this. To get the year’s fire¬ 
wood in the winter—saw and split it, and have it 
all well seasoned and snugly piled in a handy shed, 
by the time the settled weather 9f spring comes, 
is of the most importance. It is a great saving of 
time in the busy days of spring and summer, 
when there are so many things that must be done 
then or not at all. There is a great economy of 
fuel in using dry wood, and it has an important 
influence on the temper and happiness of the 
household. Sizzling fire brands and soggy wood 
have no tendency to develop in either man or woman 
saintly characteristics. Dry wood, then, is not 
only a means of grace, but much cheaper than that 
which is cut fresh from the tree when needed. 
The accompanying engraving gives a view of a 
wood-cutting scene in winter. The hunter, who 
appears to have been fairly successful, is just com¬ 
ing up, and so quietly in the soft, freshly fallen snow, 
that the choppers do not hear him or his speechless, 
well-trained dog. The four oxen having brought 
their heavy load to the top of the knoll, have 
paused for a breath before they are urged on, either 
to the wood-yard or to the neighboring saw-milL 
CopTurrm issn p.y 
