The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1874-10-23
Telling RedwO0d.Tree in California.

We extract from the Oakland Real
Estate Reporter a few paragraphs from
an interesting article entitled logging
in the Redwoods of California"
The choppers, especially, must be men
of intelligence and experience. A great
deal more than mere strength to swing
the ak for eleven hours a day is requir-
ed to make good chopper. After the
tree is selected the ground needs careful
looking after, as stump or fallen tree,
or any inequality of the earth, would, as
a gentleman of the profession remarked,
knock the biggest on 'em into smither-
eens." It is a peculiarity of redwood to
split into long and proftless thin strips
upon small provocation, and the mex
perienced eye, glancing over the ground
that bristles with all sorts of obstacles,
sees little hope of any tree escaping de-
struction. 1t is only the extreme skill
of the choppers that makes the disaster
uncommon. They can drive stake with
the biggest tree in the forest when the
ground is clear When there is sufficient
opening in direct line, a common ex-
pedient Is to fall the tree so that it will
strike in its descent the trunk of anoth-
er Calculating the bounce well, makes
an accomplished chopper.
Telling a seven or eight foot tree is
half days work for three men. The
choppers stand some six or eight feet
from the ground, each on a narrow bit
of board, one end of which is thrust in
to notch in the bark, and this unsteady
footing is all they have, while they hack
away with their axes hour after hour.
When ten or fifteen footer is encoun-
tered, platform of bark, with the stand
ing boards for support, is built, and an
extra chopper put on. Two cuts are
made in the tree; that on the side on
which the monster is TO fall being larger
and somewhat lower than the one on the
lower side. Thus the weight of the tree
is made to serve for its own overthrow.
It is tremendously hard work, and wears
the strongest man out in from three to
four years.
When the tree begins to complain"
as the shriil, vibrating, cracking noise is
aptly called, the choppers give long,
warning wall that sends all the work
men in the neighbcrhood scampering to
safe distance. A second tells that the
tree is wavering, and the choppers them
selves leap from their perches and run
from it. The giant yields slowly and
with mighty grumbling. Then, in
spite of himself, he leans over painfully,
and with a frightsome booming and
cracking sweeps to the trembling earth
with foliage whistling and screaming
like the rigging of ship in a hurricane.
The shock is terrific, and resembles
nothing so much as an earthquake.
Clouds of dust, mingled with flying frag-
ments, are thrown into the air. Every
branch is snapped off and broken to
splinters. The thud is heard and felt
miles away.
The editor of the Lancaster (Penna.)
Farmer says:
"In n recent conversation with an ex-
perienced chicken grower, he informed
us that he had been very successful in
conquering that precarious disease in his
young fowls by the application of air
slaked lime. AS soon as a manifestation
Of 0opaO -, his FOULS AMMAN p. ha coDfnao
his chickens in box, one at time,
sufficiently large to contain the bird, and
places a coarse piece of cotton over the
top. Upon this he place the pulverized
lime and taps the screen sufficiently to
cause the lime to fall through. This
lime dust the fowl inhales the and
causes it to sneeze, and in a short time
the cause of gapes is thrown out in the
form of Shiny mass or masses of worms
which had accumulated in the windpipe
and smaller air vessels. This remedy
he considers superior to any he has ev-
er tried and seldom fails to effect a per-
feet cure. He has abjured all those
mechanical means by which it is at
tempted to dislodge the entozoa with in
struments made of whalebone, hogs |
bristles, or fine wire, alleging that people
are quite as certain to push the cape
worms farther down the throat of the |
diseased fowls as to draw them out"
>-0>-
The scandalous Washington Chroni-
Gle, says: "When Mary Walker reaches
Turkey we hope the Sultan, that abso-
lutte monarch of all he surveys, will
make her take her breeches off," Mary