CHAPTER VIII 
ANIMAL DRAFT POWER 
For many years animals constituted the only draft power 
used in logging operations in the United States. They are still 
used extensively in the spruce region of the Northeast, the Appa- 
lachians, the yellow pine forests of the South, the Lake States, 
the Inland Empire and portions of California. In all of these 
regions machinery has replaced them for many purposes, yet 
animal logging is still extensively practiced. 
Animals are now seldom used to move heavy timber, or for 
swamp logging or work on very rough ground and very steep 
slopes. Power-driven machinery has supplanted them in the 
redwood belt of California, the fir forests of the Northwest, 
the cypress swamps of the South and in some of the other rough 
mountainous portions of the United States. 
They still remain the favorite form of draft when the timber 
is of medium size, where the stand per acre is less than 5000 
board feet and when topography and bottom afford a good footing. 
The chief uses for animals in logging are to transport timber 
and other forest products from the stump to a collecting point 
along a logging railroad, a landing on some stream or to a saw- 
mill. In addition they often supply the power for decking logs 
on skidways, and loading logs on sleds, wagons and log cars. 
Even when machinery is used for skidding logs, annnals may be 
required to return the cable to the woods and to haul wood and 
water for the engines. 
Oxen. — Oxen were the only animals owned by many of the 
pioneer lumbermen, and even after horses were available, loggers 
operating in remote sections found the ox more desirable because 
it could live on coarser feed, stand rougher treatment and required 
an inexpensive harness which could be made in camp. 
Conditions have now changed, and the higher cost of labor 
and supplies has led many loggers to use either horses or mules 
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