The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-01-13
FLATHEADS Of TWO KINDS
Work of Beetles and Men
in Texas Forests.
ALWAYS ON THE MOVE
Insects That Were Trained by Set
tiers TO Cut Down Trees and Clear
Farm Lands-Life of the Lumber
men at the Mill-front-Wiping
Out the Woods.

Out the Woods.
"As one travels through the pine
woods Of East Texas" said II. G.
Fuller of Nacogdoches, in the New
York Times, "hs will pass thou
sands of logs rotting in the forest.
He will also hear a peculiar grating
or rasping sound rising from the rot
ting logs which will puzzle him II he
Is stranger in the woods
This sound is made by a beetle
peculiar to the pines and known as
the fiathead and sawyer. Fortunes iu
fine pine timber have been made way
with by the ravages of this beetle in
the Texas forests.
"As a rule II does not attack the
live standing timber. II, however,
dead pine pole or branch lies against
a living tree the persistent and in
dustrious flathead will work out Of
the dead feeding place into the live
tree and continue its destructive
feast therein.
This trait of the nathead was
early discovered by the pioneer set
tiers In east Texas, when the yellow
pine trees we're regarded as worth
less encumberers of the ground, and
they economical both time and labor
In the deadening of the timber by
introducing the fiathead into 1t by
way of dead stuff communicating with
the live trees Within few months
the hathead would have more trees
deadened than the settler would gir-
die in the same time, and with no
cost to him in money and with great
saving to him in labor. There are
thousands OF acres OF farm lands in
east Texas to-day which were clear
ed of timber by fatheads In this way.
The men who live away out In
the pine forests, miles in from the
mills, and whose calling 1t is to cut
the trees and get out logs for saw
ing, are likewise known as fat
heads, so called because they have
all the industry and persistence of
the beetle In cutting the pines. The
domain of these human hatheads is
the forest at the extreme end OF the
tramroad that carries the logs from
the forest depths to the mill and Is
known as the mill front.
Here they live in shacks thrown
up rudely, but giving comfortable
shelter. Not a few of them have
their families with them in the piney
depths
There is a commissary building
which is supplied from the general
commissary stores at the mill. and
from It the flathead community
draws its supplies plentiful and
substantial but never what more
favored folk in the ouside world
would call dainty. The fiathead peo-
pie are, as a rule, sociable and kind
hearted
The human fiatheads of the Tex
as pine woods usually work in pairs;
that is to say, two men buy an outfit,
which consists OF two good crosscut
saws, axles, files, oil and ropes and
chains, and go into the woods to
work together. They saw down the
trees, trim them and saw them into
suitable lengths.
"They are at work by daylight
every morning and work as long as
II is light enough to see. They are
their own bosses, as they work by
the thousands feet, and are subject
to no orders or system of timekeep-
ing. An individual earning of 81 In
days work is regarded as a good one.
The measurement of the work is
fKed by the log scaler, who follows
the hathead and figures up the con-
tents Of each log.
I'm cutting their timber the fat
heads are particular to calculate the
falling of the trees so that the tops
will lie together as close as possible
and they do 1t to a scientific nicely.
This is so that the bullpunchers can
get at the logs quickly, without
waste of valuable time, for with
sawmill people time is money and
the flathead who would go into the
woods and cut his timber so that
logs and tops would lie all In tan
gle would soon lose his job.
"As the timber is cut away from
one flathead center the tram road is
extended further into the forest, and
there new settlement is made. The
usefulness of the old one being gone,
the shacks in time tumble to dilapi-
dation and decay.
There Is nothing more expressive
of utter abandonment and ruin than
one Of these deserted mill front set
Elements, amid the scattered and de-
caying debris of the once lordlly
pines, now loud with the rasping OF
the insect flathead completing the
destruction of its human prototype,
who is busy elsewhere preparing 1t
fat fields and pastures new"