Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1896 — “Kicking” Trees. [ARTICLE]

“Kicking” Trees.

Very few who have never witnessed the method of lumbering in our forests realize the danger, with its accompanying fascination, the hard rugged work with its health-giving results, or the enjoyment to be found in camp life in the solitary woods, miles from civilization. The danger from flying timbers or a “kicking” tree as it falls, lodges or strikes upon a stump or across a log, and swing around or flies back with terrible force, is not noticed by the lumbermen if they are lucky enough to dodge successfully. Another danger that people little realize is that of the teamsters who haul the logs from the stump to the main road. Much of the timber is cut up on the mountain sides, which are so deep that a horse team can scarcely climb up. At the top, logs measuring from thirty to fifty feet in length are loaded upon one sled and are dragged down the mountain. In places the road goes down so steep that the ends of the logs are above the horses hips. The logs with the sled tip down, and away they go down the mountain as fast as the horses can go, with the teamster hanging to the reins and keeping his balance upon the logs as they thrash and roll around beneath his feet Occasionally the teamster emits a terrific yell that would put a Comanche Indian to shame, to warn his brother teamsters that he is coming, so they can get out of the way. They drive in a turnout, and the loaded team spins past them. It is seldom that a horse loses his footing; if he does the team is sluiced down the mountain. Occasionally they go against a tree, and sometimes both of the horses are killed, hut they generally come out all right, with a few scratches. With the advent of the railroad and Invention of wood pulp, the uses of the spruce tree have been changed or enlarged, and so far as Byron, Me., is concerned, the matter of getting it from the forest to the market has changed. The logs are now loaded on to cars in the forests and hauled to the very mill doors, where they are converted into pulp and paper. During the present winter logs have been hauled to the Rumford Falls Paper Company’s mill, converted into paper, shipped to distant cities, where it is used by some of the leading daily papers, printed, returned and read by the camp’s crew where the lumber was cut within a fortnight from the time the tree was cut in the forest. Such is the effect ot progress of civilization upon this branch of business. Only a few years ago—even now, in remote sections, where railroads have not reached—one year is reconed on to get the lumber to market, and it sometimes takes to years to run the lumber out of the stream to the main river.