The New England magazine . ously months before. Their task was merely tofollow directions. The places for pole-holes had all been marked by the engineerswho went over the route last spring. Onlyin very exceptional cases is it allowable toplant a pole anywhere except where the ex-perts intended to put it. The poles themselves are, of course, themainstay of the system. The chief of con-struction told me that it is nowadays notso easy to get the great two-ton and three-ton shafts of chestnut timber which are neighborhood through which its lines pass,and many a farmer who has good chestnuttimber o
The New England magazine . ously months before. Their task was merely tofollow directions. The places for pole-holes had all been marked by the engineerswho went over the route last spring. Onlyin very exceptional cases is it allowable toplant a pole anywhere except where the ex-perts intended to put it. The poles themselves are, of course, themainstay of the system. The chief of con-struction told me that it is nowadays notso easy to get the great two-ton and three-ton shafts of chestnut timber which are neighborhood through which its lines pass,and many a farmer who has good chestnuttimber on his land earns a few dollars byselling it shortly before the construction-crew passes through. Incidentally, thechief expressed to me a wonder that morelandowners are not setting out chestnuttimber on otherwise unproductive acres;for he believes that in the near future thesetrees, which grow to sufficient maturity inabout twenty-five or thirty years, will bein even greater demand than now. LAYING A LONG-DISTANCE LINE 325. The old manner of pole-raising. A score of men raised the two-ton stick of timber upward with long pike poles However, to return to our construction -crew: let us note that the company is di-vided into workers of various kinds. Thepoles have already been laid out beside thespots where the holes are to be dug. Thevanguard of the crew consists of the trim-mers, who have to cut into as badly tan-gled thickets as one could expect to seeanywhere. Our picture reveals the natureof much of the Connecticut jungle throughwhich the line passes. Following the trim-mers come the diggers. These menmust prepare holes six or eight feet deep inthe stony soil — and no easy task it is. Ihappened to be fortunate enough in mymorning of observation to see one of thosefrequent cases where dynamite had to beused in excavating, and I succeeded in get-ting a good snapshot of the explosion. Themen used several pounds of forty per cent,nitroglycerine. An electric battery servedto dis
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