. American forestry. Forests and forestry. LOGGING FOR PULP WOOD IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS Bringing in a string of logs Crack! Like a pistol shot, the driver's whip brings us back with a snap to the ox-team coming for the logs. A few minutes—another crack of the whip, at which every beast leans into the yoke, and our "paper" is on its way again. The trail down which we follow the logs is a gully three or four feet deep, partly dug and partly worn into the ground ; and in the bottom of it is a little stream of water which makes a slippery mud over which the logs glide easily. A wal
. American forestry. Forests and forestry. LOGGING FOR PULP WOOD IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS Bringing in a string of logs Crack! Like a pistol shot, the driver's whip brings us back with a snap to the ox-team coming for the logs. A few minutes—another crack of the whip, at which every beast leans into the yoke, and our "paper" is on its way again. The trail down which we follow the logs is a gully three or four feet deep, partly dug and partly worn into the ground ; and in the bottom of it is a little stream of water which makes a slippery mud over which the logs glide easily. A walk of three-quarters of a mile brings us to the log yard, where the logs are cut up into billets. Two at a time, the string is finally brought to the pile and the cattle amble off after an- other load. The logs are now ready to be sawn and split up into five-foot billets pre- paratory to being shot down the pole- chute to the creek below. On a rainy day, when the chute is wet, a hundred- pound billet will shoot down a forty- per-cent grade at the rate of a mile a minute, leaping from the end of the chute far out into space and striking tlie stony creek-bed only three or four 6on times before it comes to rest a thou- sand feet below. A stirring scene it is to watch these billets jump from the chute, crash on the ledge below, and leap again, until finally they lie quiet in the pile, just above the so-called "wet- chute," far below. But come! the splash dam is about to be opened, and we must be on hand. Away up on the side of the mountain man has constructed a dam, behind which he holds a little pond of water. For a day and a night the water from a tiny brook has been collecting. A chute from the top of the mountain brings billets directly into the quiet pool and those from another chute are run into the creek just below the dam. As we stand watching, of a sudden the gate is loosened, flying up, and out pours the water, carrying the billets down the steep mountain-side
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectforestsandforestry
