CHAPTER XII 
WHEELED VEHICLES 
Wheeled vehicles may be used where snow is not available as 
a bottom on which to move logs. They are employed for sum- 
mer logging in the Lake States and the Inland Empire, and for 
year-round logging in the South, Southwest, and the sugar pine 
region of California. 
TWO-WHEELED VEHICLES 
Bummers. — A low truck, called a bummer or self-loading 
skidder is extensively used in the flat and rolling hardwood 
and in the yellow pine forests of the South, especially in Arkan- 
sas and Louisiana. A similar vehicle also is used in some places 
in the Inland Empire. In the South bummers often are made 
by the camp blacksmith and have solid black gum wheels with 
14-inch faces and a diameter of from 18 to 21 inches. Those 
offered by manufacturers of logging supplies have a skeleton wheel 
24 inches in diameter with a 6-inch tire. The solid wheel is 
usually preferred because it gives a greater bearing surface on soft 
ground. 
Heavy steel axles support a wooden bunk from 2| to 3| feet 
in length which is slightly concave on its upper surface. A 
tongue 5^ feet long is attached to the bunk and serves both as a 
loading lever and as a point of attachment for the draft power. 
Small logs are held on the bunk with chains and large logs with 
tongs attached to the front face of the bunk or to a breastplate 
on the tongue. 
In loading, a bummer is driven up to a log and backed around 
against it near the end. The tongue is then brought to a per- 
pendicular position which permits the attachment of the tongs 
3 or 4 feet from the end of the log (Fig. 52). The team is then 
hitched to a chain on the end of the tongue and driven forward 
until the tongue has been brought to a horizontal position, which 
brings the log on top of the wheels. The trucks are turned by 
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