The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1883-05-25

and then indeed another existence ID
found. In fact, its position in society is
elevated. Those noble trees, the Go
liaths of the forests, are fast disappear
ing. But their gigantic stumps still re-
main to tell of their departed greatness
And enormous stumps they truly are.
So much so, indeed, that the ak has to
climb in the world to overcome them,
and the chopper assumes q position
which he is not compelled to attempt
anywhere else. To surmount the enor-
nous swell at the base of the tree and
commence operations where the aver
age diameter of the trunk may be said
to begin, he builds platform made OF
stakes with cross-pieces of rails. some
times six or ten feet high, around his
victim, and chops from that, cutting
above the dubious swell. Or, if an ex-
pert, he will simply '.bucket' hole in
the trunk, and driving a stout stake
into it. stand perched upon that slender
foothold as he dexterously swings his
blade. The size of the redwood giants
is world-famous, and it is legend OF
the coast that woodman having chop
ped for q week on one side of tree
walked around it and found another
chopper who had been ut work for a
month on the other side. Huge they
are. but beautiful wood to chop. fairly
Turing the inguisitive blade to the mys-
teries of untold centuries wrapped up in
their red hearts, and the death-bellow
of the forest colossus as, in his final
agony, he plunges down some dark.
wooded CANYON, crushing all before him.
NAV be heard reverberating in, dull
thunder through the eloaked hills at all
seasons of the year.
But it is not until the cypress swamps
of the Southland are reached that the
AK takes to water. In those dark
Swallowed and moss-draped lagoons the
chopper becomes amphibious and per-
forms his work while skillfully balanced
in one of the most treacherous of all
aquatic cOntrivances, a dug-Out. Should
any one think there is no science re-
guired to chop from a dug-out, let the
skeptic try it. A person not an mex
pert hand with an AK. but novice at
swinging one while lettering in
canoe, did so, and mourned. Once on
the Bayou Teche he padded up to big
tree whose great dubious stem reached
far under water, and, fastening his dug
out to the victim, seized his AK and bold
ly stood erect in the PROV. Balancing
hmself for moment until true equi-
librium was attained, he swung back his
ak and made bold stroke at the tree
Tie dug-out attempted sOmersault in
stantly. 1t shot out of water at the
stern; the cutter shot under water at the
bow; and where the AK went is mys-
terry to this day. The South has world
of wealth in the cypress, and it has beer
comparatively lightly drawn upon. II
is soft, tine-grained wood, very free
from knots and blemishes, and easily
worked. Without question the most
easily manipulated wood in the world Is
the soft, smooth. glossy-grained mahog
any pine of California, the famous red
wood. Its grain is SO straight and sc
delicately woven that, to use chop
pers' expression, it splits if you shake
an AK at it."
Of the AK in the oak-lands of the
Southwest, where it labors fo' France
and Spain, sending them annually
thousands of dollars worth of slaves,
cOrdwood chopping, rubbing char
coal-sticking. hOop-pole-cUtting, and
kindred industries, little need be said,
save that it does its share of the work
honestly. and has settled policy that
no man shall hold intercourse with it
with its coat on. This Difference it ex-
acts from all with whom it enters into
business relations. whether among the
ice-locked lakes and rivers of the white
pine, the laurel-scented canyons of the
coast range. or the magnolia-haunted
lagOons of the mournful. moss-draped
cypress. There is no healthier, clean
er. and more enjoyable exercise in the
world than swinging an AK. In handling
one, nearly every muscle of the body
is brought into active play. In fact,
the AK is whole gymnasium in itself
A torpid liver, dyspeptic stomach. OF
malaria-haunted system it seizes upon
mercilessly, chops out the trouble,
mangles it, hurls it away, and fills the
laudable vacancy with the appetite of q
wolf and the digestion of an ostrich.
AS mental. moral and religious in
structor it occupies an exalted position
In the first place it instructs where
there is plenty of elbow room and fresh
air, and, while the eye and hand are
occupied, the mind, prompted. and re-
inforced from a body wei attuned tc
healthy exercise, finds new fields Of
meditation and cogitation in which
to ramble, investigate, improve itself
and invent. And as a healthy body
generates a healthy brain, the latter re-
turns the courtesy by supplying the
former with honest physical desires
There is hardly another physical labor
affording the independence of the az
man. In timbered lands he is always
in demand, and his workshop is from
ocean to ocean and from Hudson Bay
to the gull. In the woods there is al
ways room for good choppers, and ar
AMMAN need never be idle from Septemr
her TO April. IN Y Tribune