Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1890-02-26

crop from the headwaters OF the rivers
down to their mouths is jubilant and
exciting, and not without an agreeable
spice OF danger. The log run OF large
min, reaching perhaps 10000, 900 feet.
will occupy river for Ave or ten miles
Of it's length; and with gang Of hfty
to one hundred men scattered In squads
along this distance, the work is as in
spirating as It Is laborious. Each man
has the soles Of his heavy boots armed
with projecting nails or prods, to give
him : sure foothold on the logs, and
carries ''driving-pike' or heavy pole,
some eight feet long, fitted at one end
with q stout pike, for the purpose OF
prying out the logs and releasing them
from jams. tits the effort of the drivers
to keep the logs steadily moving for
ward in'good order, and in such masses
as to avoid jams at narrow places in the
stream. A jam forms readily when two
logs. each lodging with an end on
either side of the stream, and swinging
together engage their free ends in the
middle OF the stream, forming V, with
the angle projecting up stream. Then
the logs which follow are halted, one
after another, coming up like drove of
cattle, mounting, overriding or driving
under, and, under the influence Of the
impetuous current, tanning into what
seems to the unpracticed eye an mex
tricable mass.
The current of the river is at once
halted, as If by dam, and the drivers
at work above rightly conjecture tho
cause and follow down stream to find
tho jam. Here the praoticed driver at
once proceeds to tho footor downstream
end Of the jam, and with critical eye
promptly fixes upon the two or moro
logs which are the key of the whole po-
sition. Deity he inserts his pike-pole,
loosening the logs little by little, un-
til finally there is a grand convulsion
and the imprisoned mass gradually set
ties down into motion down stream.
Usually in the month Of May or June
the logs that have been making their
passage down the stream toward the
big saw-mills at some central point
begin to arrive at their destination.
There they run into what are called the
''booms," assorted according to thei:
marks and turned over to the respective
mills owning them. The "boom" bust
ness is an important one, and is fire.
quently conducted by an incorporated
company having no interest in any lum-
Der company, thereby asserting the
logs with absolute impartiality. The
boom company at Minneapolis, great
saw-mill and lumber center, is an illus
tration. Every winter this company
sends out experienced representatives to
every lumber camp in the district to get
an official idea of the cut.
Each lumber company in the fall
figures on getting out certain quantity
of logs. Late in the winter the boom
company men can ascertain quite &C.
curately how far the anticipations and
intentions are to be realized. At the
Beef Slough boom at the junction of the
Chippewa with the Mississippi in Wis
consin hundreds of millions of feet of
logs are annually doomed, sorted, RATED
and started down the great river under
the convoy of steamers. There is the
same method of procedure on the Sagi-
nav, the Muskegon, the Manistee and
other great numbering streams of Mich
igan, on the rivers of Maine and in Can
ada and elsewhere, where the melting
SHOWS of spring are relied upon to bring
forward the great winter crop. In
Florida, on the Pacific coast and other
warm regions of course no such work is
known