The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-12-12
,California wood.Chopper..

It is in the logging camps that . stranger
will be most interested on this coast; for
there he will see and feel the bigness Of
the redwoods. A man in Humboldt
county got out Of one tree lumber enough
to make his house and barn, and TO fence
in two acres of ground. A schooner was
filed with shingles made from a single
tree. One tree in Mendocine, whose re-
mains were shown to me, made mile of
rnilroad ties. Trees fourteen feet in diam
eter have been frequently found and cut
down; the saw-logs are often split apart
with wedges, because the entire mass IS
too large to float ia the narrow
and shallow streams, and / have even
seen them blow log apart with gum
powder. A tree four feet in diameter is
called understood in these woods and so
skiIlfnl are the wood choppers that they can
make the largest giant of the forest fall
Just where they want 1t, or, as they say,
they "drive stake with the tree" The
choppers do not stand on the ground, but
on stages raised to such height as to ena-
BILE the axe to strike in where the tree at
tains its fair and regular thickness; for the
redwood, like the soquoia, swells at the
base, near the ground. These trees prefer
steep hillsides, and grow in an extremely
rough and broken country, and
their great height makes it neces-
sary to fell them carefully, lest they
should, falling with such enormous weight,
break to pieces. This constantly happens
in spite of every precaution, and there is
little doubt that 10 these forests and at
the mills, two feet of wood are wasted for
every foot of lumber sent to market. To
mark the direction line on which the tree
is to fall, the chopper usually drives o
stake into the ground one hundred or one
hundred and fifty feet from the base Of the
tree, and it is actually common to make
the tree fall upon this stake, SO straight
do these redwc is stand, and so accurate
il the skill of the cutters. To fell a tree
eight feet in diameter is counted q days
work for a man.-Hd7per's Magazine.
THE LADIES' CAR.-The "adies'
car" is o vicious fashion, and fosters the
art Of lying. There goes young man at
the heels of a lady whom he never saw or
spoke to in his life, and he is carrying Q
spick-and-span new bandbox. My word
for it, II is as empty as church contribu-
ton box on Saturday afternoon. He
bought that box for precisely that emer-
gency. The lady ascends the platform.
So does the bandbox. The brakeman
opens the door, and the young man slips in
nnquestioncd, and secures comfortable
seat. There is another man. He appears 10
be q good man. You are sure he is, and
he stands where the brakeman can see him,
and he touches his hat to window of the
car where nobody is sitting, and then,
with little smiling, affectlonate haste, he
skips up the steps and says, "Please let
me in q moment?'' and in he goes. That
unfortunate man never beheld face in
that car IN all his life. The more you
think of it, the more vicious the fashion
seems. 1t does not benefit the ribbons,
and is q positive damage to the whiskers.
Pen men up together, and if they do moi
act like cattle it will be in spite Of the pen
Women sprinkled through the cars keep
the train upon its honor, if not upon the
track, and elevate the numbering thing from
common carriage to an educator.