The Elbert County tribune., 1911-03-17

eight to ten miles distant from your nearest
neighbor II you should choose to SETTLE
among group of steep upand-downs, quite re-
moved from a wagon road little nearer to a
trail and yet a greater and laborious overland
distance from sawmill, 1t is obvious that you
Will have to depend, to great degree. upon your
own resources and upon your ability to create
with your own hands from those things which
nature has provided In a wellwooded country
Imagine yourself placed in of these val
leys or upon one OF these foothills with no great
er amount OF baggage. tools and provisions than
could be conveyed country of this char
acter with a yoke of oxen Then, to be COM
manded. Here is the forest and all 1t contains;
go, prepare for yourself your future abode"
This Is a story of home making under such
conditions. The progress Of the work is illus
trated and in its completion other than the
raw materials of the forest entered into the struc
ture or Its furnishings save a small amount of
hardware and incfdentals forming portion of the
initial supplies brought In as settlers outfit
Two young men, homesteaders. both city bred
completed the entire work. uuassisted
or the tools used the double ebitted ak per
formed the greater portion of the heavy work It
followed in the wake OF the cross-cut saw after
the telling OF the trees. and from theE on was
the chief implement of construction. With it
every duty of preparing the logs for raising them
into their positions in the building was most ade
quately performed. First 1t scored the logs
lengthwise. on two opposite sides, ready for wedg
Ing and splitting into semicircular halves. Then
II followed as the tool for hewing the nat sur
faces of the half-logs which completed formed
the smooth inside walls Of the dwelling After
each log had been raised into position came the
task OF 'notching down" which required even
more skill In the use OF Those few of the
native Inhabitants OF the forest who are most pro
hcient in making the dovetailed notches which
are necessary in completing a perfect set of
fnterlocking timbers known as corner men,"
AT native house raising the ones chosen for the
work are usually skilled woodsmen residing In
widely separated settlements among the hills
How well this part of the work was done by two
is better illustrated in the series of photographs
which shows each successive operation OF preparing
the logs and raising the framework OF the structure
- In going to the flooring, shingling window
framing. partitioning. finishing and furnishing
you would know how 1t was all accomplished in
the absence of the products of a saw and plan
ing mill or any of the manufactures so essential
to building construction and home making
Fiyo very common tools constituted the board
making outfit This primitive substitute for
sawm included ak; two or three steel
wedges and as many, hand made. OF hickory; a
frow with hickory handle, the blade made of
section OF iron tire; mallet and a maui each
cut from unseasoned hickory timber.
The selection of perfect board trees" is
guess work to a degree as practiced by the ma
tyes. Out of every four trees chosen by the
woodsmans system of Identifying marks, usually
only one is perfectly adaptable to board making
by the method of splitting with mallet and frow
The most reliable way to select the right kind
Of timber is to observe the general trend of the
crevices in the bark. The course of these lines
should be nearly perpendicular with the trunk.
Another good method of judging a straight
grained trunk is to note the distribution and the
general design of the scaly, turtle-sheil patches