American ingenuity has modified machinery to meet the demands of the timber in each locality as far as possible. On the western coast the trees are so large that the machinery used in the East would be useless, so the power and capacity has been in creased to meet the demand. Some of the logs are so large that they can not be moved and must be blasted apart to reduce them to portable or work able size. In such cases the percentage of waste is very high.
Small tools.
The small tools are few in variety but ample in quantity. Each camp is provided with a few pairs of skidding tongs, which are similar to ice-tongs but heavy enough to stand the strain of one or more teams of horses. They are used to get logs out of inconvenient places. Chain is bought by the keg and made up by the blacksmith as needed. Cant-hooks for rolling logs by hand are always in evidence. Cross-cut saws are made ready for use by a man who is employed much of the time keep ing them in order. Axes are bought by the dozen. A good strong man wants a four- to six-pound axe. The style known as double-bit is best liked by most choppers. The flattened handle and evenly balanced blades make guiding easier, and the edge capacity is double that of the single-bit or poled axe.
Transportation to market and mill. (Figs. 481 -18a.) Water.—In the New England and lake states water has performed an important part in the transportation of logs to the mill. Logs have been thrown into the lakes and streams and carried many miles, where the lumber was available to canal, steam-boat or railway. Often the logs were left in the water for months, until some of them became water-logged and sank to the bottom. In such a bountiful harvest these were but straws and were never missed, but now companies are formed and rights are purchased for the purpose of raising these "dead -Leads." The logs are peeled and piled on the bank to dry for a year, when they are again put into the water and floated to the mill, and cut into lumber, which is scarcely inferior to that which the logs would have made had they not sunk. Hard-wood logs are so heavy that they are not often driven for long distances in the water. In the southern states, cypress trees are often felled into the water and towed or poled to the bank.
This is known as "jam-sticking." In certain parts of the West, wooden chutes, several miles in length and furnished with water, am used for running railway ties and other timber down the mountains.
Big wheels.—Where water is not available, other means must be resorted to. In the North, snow and ice roads are used in the cold season. During open weather in the North, and throughout the year in the South and parts of the West, what are known as "big wheels" are used (Figs. 483, 484). These wheels are said to have been used first in Michigan. They are built with a strong axle, the wheels standing six to ten feet high. Between the wheels one to several logs are suspended, the rear end being allowed to drag.
Roads.—Fairly good roads are made through the woods for a single crop, because a large number of heavy loads must be hauled over some of them. Swampers cut out the underbrush and clear away obstructions, after which grading is done if necessary.
Miscellaneous means.—In some mountain ous regions, where rocks do not interfere, timber is allowed to slide down the incline on the bare ground. In the extreme West and Northwest, huge logs are dragged on the ground, rollers being supplied to con vert sliding-friction into rolling -friction. Cattle, a means of power which has been largely used in harvesting crops, are used for this purpose because of their strength and convenience. In the South, what is called "drumming" is employed to a limited extent. This appliance consists of a large cylinder made to revolve, and which winds up a rope or cable, the outer end of which is fastened to the log. A much more pow erful and practical method is the steam skidder, which, by means of pulleys and a cable, gathers the logs from a few thousand feet on either side of the track on which it moves and places them on the cars, if need be. Temporary tracks of either narrow or standard gauge are laid into the woods and camps, and when the timber in one place has been harvested they are taken up and relaid in an other place. These are contrivances for short hauls to get the logs to the steam railway, on which they are placed and transported longer dis tances to the mill.