LOGGING METHODS 23 
There has been but Httle change, since the early days, in logging 
technicjue in the Northeastern part of the United States where 
the winters are favorable for sled transportation and there are 
many streams down which coniferous timber may be floated; 
however, marked engineering skill has been displayed in the 
improvement of streams for log floating purposes and the per- 
fection of sleds and sled roads for the movement of heavy loads. 
The power log hauler, either gasoline or steam, has replaced 
animal draft on some operations and flumes and log slides have 
been used to some extent but the original plan of operation has 
not been greatly modified. Individual logging units are, in general, 
limited in output. The aggregate cut of some pulpwood com- 
panies in this region is as great as that of large operators else- 
where, but it is the product of many medium- or small-sized 
operations rather than of one large one. 
The early development of logging practice in Pennsylvania 
and the Lake States was based upon the methods of the Northeast 
because climatic and other conditions were similar and the pioneer 
loggers were from the New England section. The most important 
improvements in logging technique were developed in the Lake 
States in order to overcome adverse conditions. For example, 
logging railroads were introduced in the Lake States in the late 
"seventies" by a logger who was unable to haul his timber on 
sleds to water transportation, owing to the absence of sufficient 
snow. Power skidding methods also were first devised in this 
region in the early "eighties" to get logs out of glacial "pot holes" 
which could not be profital)ly brought out by animals. There 
is no indication, however, that railroad transportation gained an 
important place in logging in the Lake States until many years 
later, and power logging has never been used to any great extent 
to yard logs in that region. 
The development of the modern systems of power logging and 
the adaptation on a large scale of the railroad to logging purposes 
came with the shifting of the center of lumber manufacture from 
the Lake States to the South and to the West. The inability 
to use animals in the cypress forests was one of the main factors 
which led to the improvement of power logging systems which 
were early recognized by southern yellow pine and West Coast 
operators as applicable to dry land conditions. The need for a 
large continuous output early indicated the use of some form 
