232 LOGGING 
supply fuel for the boiler. The night watchman guards the 
machine at night, cleans up, and raises steam in the morning 
ready for the crew. 
If the skidder is equipped with a loader boom and engine the 
following extra men are required : 
1 loader leverman, usually the crew foreman 
1 top loader 
1 ground loader 
The top loader chooses the logs to be loaded and, standing 
on the car, directs their proper placement on the load. The 
ground loader places the loading tongs on the logs to be loaded, 
acting under the orders of the top loader. 
Eight animals are used for skidding, four being worked from 
one to two and one-half hours and then allowed to rest while the 
others are in use. The ninth animal is used to haul the wood 
cart which transports fuel for the engine. 
The daily capacity of each line is about 35,000 board feet, 
with a daily average of 125,000 feet for a 4-line machine, where 
logs up to 40 feet in length are handled. Daily records of 4-line 
machines, bringing in whole trees, have run as high as 295,000 feet. 
This amount, however, cannot be approximated as an average 
even under favorable circumstances. 
Snaking machines are adapted to logging open stands in fairly 
level or rolling country, free from swamps, rocks, gullies and heavy 
underbrush. The heavy slash which results from dense stands 
and unfavora])le ground conditions interfere with the return of 
the lines from the machine to the stump by animals 
THE SLACK-ROPE SYSTEM 
This was developed chiefly in the cypress swamps of the 
South, where extensive areas of forest could not be logged with 
animals, and where railroad construction was not practicable. 
It is also extensively used on the Pacific Coast and in the southern 
pineries and to a limited extent in some other regions. 
The system uses a heavy pulling cable, and a lighter one for 
returning the main cable from the skidder to the point from 
which the logs are to be dragged. 
The powei for the slack-rope system consists of an upright 
boiler, and two or more large drums driven by one or more pairs 
of engines. 
