The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1883-07-13
The Swinging. Cleaning Az.

The dexterity and precision with which
a first-class chopper handles an ak is
remarkable. Trees three feet in dame
ter are often cut entirety through and
still retain their perpendicular position
until breeze, or some slight shock
topples them over. The two gaps on
either side meet in straight line. To
the novice there are many strange things
within the province of an Ak. An clear
ing piece of farm land it is frequently
stipulation that the chopper shall
''bucket" his stumps to hold a pail Of
water; in other words, leave n concave
bowl on their tops to catch rain-water
and rot them. In the pineries the Ak is
used for nearly every purpose for which
a cutting tool is required. With it the
chopper trims his ''boot-packs." cuts
lacing thongs, "buckets' horses and cat
tie feed-boxes, pins up his shed shan
ties and Outhouses, constructs his hobs
and "go-devils," and even whites his
tooth-picks. He cutters chips for drink
ing cups, fixes tobacco for his pipe,
throws flying bridges over winter
streams, whites out his checkers for
his evenings amusement, and carves the
checker-bOard. In word, it is part
and parcel of himself, and its song is
the music of life to his ear.
After leaving the pineries the ak has
long ramble to new life upon the Pacific
Slope. In California, on the Coast
Range it enters the famous redwOods,
and then indeed another existence is
found. In fact, its position in society is
elevated. Those noble trees, the Cola
tbs of the forests, are fast disappearing.
But their gigantic stumps still remain to
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 position which he is
not compelled to attempt anywhere else.
To surmount the enormous swell ut the
base of the tree and commence opera
tons where the average diameter of the
trunk may be said to begin, he builds q
platform made of stakes with cross
pieces of rails, sometimes sixOr ten feet
high, around his victim, and chops from
that, cutting above the bulbOus swell.
Or, if all expert. he will simply "bucket"
hole in the trunk, and driving stake
into it, stand perched upon that slender
foothold as he dextrously swings his
blade. The size of the redwood giants
is world famous, and it is a legend of
the coast thata woodsman having chop
ped for q week on one side of IL tree,
walked around il and found another
chopper who had been at work for u
month on the other side. Huge they
are. but beautiful wood to chop, fairly
Turing the inquisitive blade to the mys-
teries of untold centuries wrapped up
in their red hearts; and the dcath-bel-
low of the forest colossus, as in his final
agony, he plunges down some dark,
wooded canyon, crushing all before him.
may be heard reverberating in dull
thunder through the cloaked hills at all
seasons of tho year.
But it is not until the cypress swamps
of the southland are reached that the AK
takes to water. In those dark-shadOw-
ed and moss-draped lagoOns the chopper
becomes amphibious. and performs his
work while skillfully balanced i'll one
of the most treacherOus OF all aquatic
contrivances, n dug-out. Should any
one think there is no science to chop
from q dug-out let the skeptic try it. A
person, not an inexpert hand with an AK.
but novice at swinging ono while teet-
ering in a canoe, did SO, and mourned.
Once Oh the Bayou Teche he padded up
to big tree, whose great. dubious stem
reached far under the water, and fast
ening his dug-out TO the victim. seized
his AK and boldly stood erect in his prov.
Balancing himself for moment, until a
true equilibrium was attained, he swung
back his ak and made bold stroke at
the tree The dug-out attempteda SOM
ersault instantly. 1t shot out of the water
at the stern; the cutter shot under water
at the bow; and where the az went is o
mystery to this day.-N. y Tribune.