None Of The Ground, However, Has Been Completely Denuded.
Most
of the young trees have been left, together with the hemlocks and
other trees undesirable in kind or
In some way defective, so that the
neighboring trees appear to have closed over the gaps make by the
removal of the larger and better ones, maintaining the general
continuity of the forest and leaving no sign on the sylvan sea, at
least as seen from a distance.
In felling the trees they cut them off usually at a height of six to
twelve feet above the ground, so as to avoid cutting through the
swollen base, where the diameter is so much greater. In order to
reach this height the chopper cuts a notch about two inches wide and
three or four deep and drives a board into it, on which he stands
while at work. In case the first notch, cut as high as he can reach,
is not high enough, he stands on the board that has been driven into
the first notch and cuts another. Thus the axeman may often be seen
at work standing eight or ten feet above the ground. If the tree is
so large that with his long-handled axe the chopper is unable to reach
to the farther side of it, then a second chopper is set to work, each
cutting halfway across. And when the tree is about to fall, warned by
the faint crackling of the strained fibers, they jump to the ground,
and stand back out of danger from flying limbs, while the noble giant
that had stood erect in glorious strength and beauty century after
century, bows low at last and with gasp and groan and booming throb
falls to earth.
Then with long saws the trees are cut into logs of the required
length, peeled, loaded upon wagons capable of carrying a weight of
eight or ten tons, hauled by a long string of oxen to the nearest
available stream or railroad, and floated or carried to the Sound.
There the logs are gathered into booms and towed by steamers to the
mills, where workmen with steel spikes in their boots leap lightly
with easy poise from one to another and by means of long pike poles
push them apart and, selecting such as are at the time required, push
them to the foot of a chute and drive dogs into the ends, when they
are speedily hauled in by the mill machinery alongside the saw
carriage and placed and fixed in position. Then with sounds of greedy
hissing and growling they are rushed back and forth like enormous
shuttles, and in an incredibly short time they are lumber and are
aboard the ships lying at the mill wharves.
Many of the long, slender boles so abundant in these woods are saved
for spars, and so excellent is their quality that they are in demand
in almost every shipyard of the world. Thus these trees, felled and
stripped of their leaves and branches, are raised again, transplanted
and set firmly erect, given roots of iron and a new foliage of
flapping canvas, and sent to sea.
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