Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-22

might be turned in there for few hours to
gather fuel Most of the forests up in TINS
country are absolutely impenetrable to ordi-
nary people. Cruisers" as they call the
timber experts who go through the woods
to estimate the value of the trees, and other
professional woodsmen are able to make
their way about because of long practice.
but an ordinary citizen couldn't make
mile a day travelling through the woods.
The mental pictures of the Oregon for
ests are usually wrong. The trees are just
the noblest giants in the world-eight, ten,
fifteen. yes. even twenty feet In diameter,
half as tall as the Washington monument.
and without limb or a branch for 100 or
$50 feet from the bottom. They stand so
thick that the foliage on their tops inter-
twines and leaves the woods In a perpetual
twilight. But trees have merciless foes In
the wind and the weather, and for untold
centuries Titans have been torn up by the
roots and have fallen headlong full length
upon the ground and one another. Between
and around the recumbent trunks under
brush has grown densely, seeds have been
deposited in the cracks of rotting logs by
the birds and the wind and have terminated
and grown and become clumps of tough and
thick plants. Century after century this
process has continued. without interruption,
this moist and sunny climate Is so great
that the ground of every forest has become
a mass of live vegetation and dead timber
as dense and impossible as a tropical
jungle.
Much of the dead and down timber
is of great value. A fir or cedar tree can
lie upon the ground or even in the water
for many years without deteriorating. In
deed, lumbermen will tell you that water
cured lumber is the best, and hence they
allow logs to soak in the booms year after
year before they are cut The same is
true of fallen logs in the forest, but unless
expensive and often impossible to get them
out. Some of them can be cut up into
single bolts-that is, the trunks can be
sawed into sections eighteen inches and
three feet long and hauled out to the near
est Single mill.
Occasionally fallen fir trees can be reach
eo by what are called skid" roads-that Is,
trails cut through the woods and lald
cross wise with the trunks of small trees
over which sledgest can be hauled. The
cross pieces are placed at intervals OF two
three feet and are creased with crude
petroleum and other lubricators so that the
runners of the sledges will slip over them
easily. When contractors undertake to
clear forest of timber they first build
skid rod" That is absolutely necessary.
If it is large forest and large job rude
railway Is constructed and the logs and
shingle bolts hauled out by steam, on
low, strongly built fat cars. But while the
body of one of the giants of a Washington
forest may be SOLD for 5000 or $500 at
sawmill and be worth So, 900 or s., 600 if cut
up into timber or shingles, it is absolutely
worthless in the forest. 1t has no more
value than load .af ice twenty miles south
o. the north pole.
The good things of life, as you may have
noticed are not always equally distributed,
and we have to put up with them as they
are.
Ddsposing of the Waste.
Not only is there an incalculable waste Of
timber in the forest but at every sawmill
throughout this country train load after
train load of bark, slabs, ends and saw
duet are being burned daily. Indeed, one
of the largest items of expense of lumber
ing and one of the most perplexing prob
lens is to dispose of the waste Experience
has taught that the easiest way is to burn
1t. Hence every saWmill has a consumer in
which, as in another place the Bible tells
about, the fires are never quenched.
Formerly 20 per cent of log was wasted
IL sawdust by the use of thick half-inch cir
cular buzz saws Now in all the modern
mills thin band saws are being substitute
co, by which the waste has been reduced
about two-thirds, and lumbermen are be-
coming more and more economical and find
ing means to make a profit out of slabs,
ends and other refuse which was formerly
wasted. They cut 1t up into box materials
and firewood and ship it by carloads to the
timber is worthless for fuel. The fiber con-
sumes so rapidly. Fir which Is the Oregon
pine, will burn like finder, but makes no
heat Hence the mill men cannot give it
away.
man without experience can conceive of
many schemes by (which the enormous
waste Of the woods and the mills might be
made useful and turned into profit, just
ike the fellow who wanted to tow the Ice
berg down to the Caribbean sea- But
rule you may assume that the lumbermen
OF Oregon and Washington are out here to
make money, and If they could add a few
more dollars to their income by utilizing
and by and by stopping the great waste Of
which 1 speak they would be very apt to
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