Lumbering and Forest Products 
1383 
How lumbering is carried on. Before the trees of a forest can be 
used as lumber a great deal of preparatory work must be done. 
Roads are built into the woods. Buildings, usually made of logs, 
are erected at each camp for the men and the horses, and for a black- 
smith’s shop. A foreman marks the trees to be cut and directs all 
the work. Some men do nothing but fell the trees. They make a 
deep cut in one side of the trunk and then saw into the other side 
until they can insert a wedge and topple the tree over. Other men 
trim off the branches and saw the fallen trees into logs of the proper 
length. Some are employed to bring food and other supplies from 
the railroad. One man does the cooking, and one or two keep the 
axes and saws sharp and the harnesses in repair. Still others haul 
away the logs. 
To get the logs out from among the trees and brush where they 
have fallen and haul them to a road of some kind, is usually the lum- 
berman’s most difficult task. In the northern United States, logs 
are “snaked ”’ out by horses or oxen to the lumber roads, where they 
are put on sleds, which are easily drawn over the winter's snow. 
Sometimes the work is done by donkey engines. The engines are 
carted high into the mountains and long cables are carried from them 
into the woods. A log that is being snaked out moves along as if it 
were a living creature, for at even a short distance the cable is invis- 
ible and one cannot see how the log is pulled. 
In many sections the logs are taken to the bank of a stream to 
wait for the time of the spring thaw, when the rising waters will float 
them down to the mill. On this journey the logs must be guided by 
skillful “river drivers,” who prevent them from ‘ jamming” or be- 
coming stranded in rapids or elsewhere. As the stream broadens, 
the logs are often made into rafts on which several raftsmen make a 
shanty of rough boards for shelter. Occasionally several rafts are 
towed by a tug. 
In very rugged regions, smooth, steep slopes are cleared and the 
logs are allowed to slide down. Sometimes rough troughs are made 
of logs to guide the sliding timber. An even better method in such a 
region is to use a flume, which is a large trough of boards. A flume 
often extends many miles from near a mountain crest to the valley 
or plains far below. A spring or mountain stream is diverted into 
the trough, and if there is plenty of water the logs float down the 
flume; but if there is only a little, they partly float and partly slip. 
In the South the levelness of many logging regions and the openness 
of the forests make it easy to drive through the woods. Here the