Lumber

“ The side which furnishes timber rises in terraces of gigantic proportions, forming a succession of abrupt precipices and shelving table-land. There are three of these giant mountain steps, each of which produces lumber which challenges the admiration and enterprise of the logmen. The ascent to these Alpine groves is too abrupt to allow the team to ascend in harness; we therefore unyoke and drive the oxen up winding pathways. The yokes and chains are carried up by the workmen, and also the bob-sled in pieces, after taking it apart. ”

“ The wood of the Big Tree is red and soft, coarse, light, and weak—unfit for must lumber uses. It ought, by all ordinary standards, to be counted scarcely worth the cutting; but the vast quantity yielded by a single tree pays the lumberman huge profits, though he wastes thousands of feet by blasting the mighty shaft into chunks manageable in the sawmill. Shingles, shakes, and fencing consume more of the lumber than general construction—ignoble uses for this noblest of all trees. ”

“ By this remarkable arrangement, Nature has anticipated, as it would appear, the wants of lumbermen in locating, and in preserving from the encroachments of the forest, a plentiful supply of subsistence for the teams employed in procuring lumber in its immediate vicinity, and far from the haunts of civilized man. ”

“ It seems dreadful to cut down trees which have been growing so long, yet occasionally one is made into lumber. After standing for a thousand years or more in the forest, it must seem strange to be cut into sections, loaded on flat cars, and started on a journey to some distant place to be made into ship masts or furniture or some other thing of which the tree never dreamed when it stood in its home on the slope of the Sierras. ”

“ But when the hogs are feeling gay, and everything serene, and all the oats and corn and hay present a healthy green, he hitches up old Kate and Dick and journeys off to town, and then comes homeward pretty quick, with lumber loaded down. And when I see the wagons drill along the country road, each one a-creaking, loud and shrill, beneath its lumber load, I know the country’s on the boom, and things will hum once more; and any man who talks of gloom is just a misfit bore. ”

“ The sooners and boomers began making houses, sod houses, log, lumber, plaster-and-lath houses, stone, brick, steel houses, but most of the houses were lumber with nails to hold the lumber together to keep the rain off and push the wind back and hold the blizzards outside. ”

“ In the middle distance, on gradually rising ground, stretched a wide belt of dense, artificial foliage, peeping through which tiled turrets and ornamented chimneys marked the polite residences of those who, though they neither stoked the furnace fires to the west, nor sawed the lumber on the east, lived in purple and fine linen from the profits of this toil. ”

“ When we arrange a big parade, you see this lumber man arrayed in all his panoply and pomp, and down the street he’ll proudly romp.
If we decide to lynch a gent, some agent for a patent tent, or one who’s sold us mining shares, or double action easy chairs, that lumber man is right on deck, and puts the rope around his neck. ”

“ New Lumber,
use it; if not, use old lumber, and if you are building in the woods the house may be built of logs and roofed with poles, covered with bark and boughs. The better the material the stronger will be the house. Secure some good sound planks and a supply of long strips two inches thick and four inches wide. Use two-by-fours for the frame of the house. ”

“ The first and greatest use of lumber is for building purposes, for houses, barns, sheds, out-buildings, fences, and for window-sashes, doors and inside finishings of all buildings, even those made of other materials. ”

“ The strength of lumber cut from trees grown as described is impaired, however, as the wood is more cross-grained than that from trees which grow in the heart of a forest, with practically the same conditions on all sides. ”

“ In some parts of the country are forests of pine, oak, and other trees. Some of these forests are so large we might travel for days or weeks through them. From trees we get lumber. Lumber is needed for building houses and ships, and for furniture. So a great many men are employed in cutting down trees and preparing the wood for use. ”

“ And as the long, slow years go by, perchance that stately tree will die; there’s death for all, it seems, and men, to earn the needed plunk, will separate its mighty trunk, and fashion boards and beams.
And one who plans to build a shack, will to the lumber dealer track, and purchase beam and board; and carpenters will straightway go, and build as fine a bungalow as mister can afford. The walls and roof of my good tree, will shelter human grief and glee, for, maybe, untold years ”

“ In the saw-mills millions of feet of lumber are being cut into boards for the markets of the United States, and in the veneering works birch logs as big around as a flour barrel are made into sheets, some as thin as your fingernail, and others as thick as the board cover of a family Bible. ”

“ I’d like to deal in lumber, in lime and lath, by jings, thus helping to encumber the world with handsome things; I’d like to have a finger in every worthy pie, I’d like my name to linger behind me when I die. The lumber dealers figure in every useful scheme, in everything that’s bigger than is an empty dream.
GOOD SIGNS
When farmers bring their teams to town, and then drive home again, their heavy wagons loaded down with boards and joists, why, then, it is a sign that things are well, the goose is hanging high; and you may safely dance and yell, for better times are nigh. ”

“ Why? What causes lumber to warp? Describe methods of piling lumber to minimize warping. Should a lumber pile be allowed to stand indefinitely? What is the proper time to cut lumber? Does it injure lumber to allow a little rain to beat into the pile?
17. What is meant by weather-dried lumber? Why is it not suitable for furniture and for inside finish? How is this remedied? For what purposes is weather-dried lumber the best?
18. What is the chief objection to kiln-drying lumber? ”

“ As might be expected the chief industries as yet developed are lumbering and fishing. There are magnificent forests of fir, spruce, cedar, and hemlock, in all directions, while in and around Astoria there are six immense establishments for transforming the timber into merchantable lumber. ”

“ In quarter-sawed lumber, the rays have a pinkish color and glossy luster which are not pleasing. This tree belongs in the class with those which are in no danger of being extirpated by human agencies. ”

“ Fig. 17.—Lumber Scale.
13. Qualities of wood.— (A.) Certain kinds of wood are adapted for some purposes better than are others; the wood-worker, therefore, should be familiar with the qualities which conditions demand, and the kinds of woods which have these qualities.
Lumber for framing should be strong and durable; it should be cut from trees which grow to a size that will allow large dimensions to be cut from them.
For outside finish, the material should be wood which [Pg 28] will stand the weather, can be easily worked, and will hold its shape well. ”

“ When we consider the abundance of high grade lumber a few years ago, and the fabulous prices which the same grades now bring, it is evident that this movement should have begun during the days of our grandfathers, instead of waiting until nearly all the best lumber in the great forests east of the Mississippi had been cut, and inestimable damage wrought by forest fires. ”

“ Twenty men had mounted the lumber-piles and were moving across the tops, lashing the lumber with their lights, driving everything before them as a woman shoos a lot of chickens. Below him, on the ground, men were standing at the end of each main thoroughfare, and were lashing them with light, while one man was walking down each by-path! ”

“ The lumberman's eyes hardened.
“We are a very busy firm here,” he said with a certain deliberation; “we do not carry a big force of men in any one department, and each of those men has to fill his place and slop some over the sides. We do not pretend or attempt to teach here. If you want to be a lumberman, you must learn the lumber business more directly than through the windows of a bookkeeper's office. Go into the woods. Learn a few first principles. Find out the difference between Norway and white pine, anyway.” ”

“ The most valuable trees for lumber are spruce, white pine, hemlock, cedar, white birch, ash, maple and basswood; all excepting pine and hemlock and poplar in addition are ground into wood pulp for the manufacture of paper. ”

“ Thus one source of profit, and that a very great one to the farming settler, has been destroyed, and the enterprising timber-merchant has established at convenient distances several saw-mills, where his lumber is converted into plank and boards for the lower markets, and where he is at all times ready to saw whatever timber the farmer has left into boards and planks for him, receiving so many feet of timber, and giving so many feet of lumber, as sawed timber is called, taking care of himself, of course, in the exchange. ”

“ White oak lumber is very high-priced. The wood of this tree we rarely see nowadays except in the most expensive oak furniture. The beautiful satiny streaks that are the chief ornament of the grain in polished table tops, are bands of fibres that radiate from the central pith to the bark. ”

“ Before we proceed any further it may be best to give the plan of a workshop, a camp, an outhouse, or a shed to be made of sawed lumber, the framework of which is made of what is known as two-by-fours, that is, pieces of lumber two inches thick by four inches wide. ”

“ Eventually the work performed upon our forests will be manifested in a new outward appearance, a change that cannot but be preferable to the scenes ordinarily presented by our cut-over and abandoned timberlands, and one that will be appreciated not only by forest lovers in general, but also by those who are engaged in the lumber industry itself, who are often forced through competition and prevailing methods to leave a desolate picture behind. ”

“ Foresters and lumbermen, like sailors and other persons whose daily occupations bring them into contact, and often into conflict, with great natural forces, have many peculiar opinions, not to say superstitious. In one of these categories we must rank the universal belief of lumbermen, that with a given head of water, and in a given number of hours, a sawmill cuts more lumber by night than by day. ”

“ He takes a hand in everything that makes our home town move and swing. If boosters hold a jamboree, this lumber dealer there you’ll see, and he will on his hind legs stand, and help to boost, to beat the band. ”

“ Lumbering the Forester should know more than a little about, as how to organize lumber operations, the equipment and management of logging and milling in various forest regions, the manufacture, seasoning, and grading of the rough and finished lumber, cost keeping in a lumber business, methods of sale, market requirements at home and abroad, prices, the relation of the lumber tariff to forestry, lumber associations, timber bonds, and insurance. ”

“ All through the winter the lumberers work in the woods, from sunrise to sunset, making the forest resound with the strokes of their axes as they fell tree after tree in amazing quantities. Often they divide into bands of six or eight men, each company striving to outrival the other in the amount of work it gets through. ”

“ When we remember that every farm in the eastern United States, is made from reclaimed forest land and that for decades lumber was always within reach up the rivers, down which it was floated, it is not strange that reckless and extravagant methods of cutting and using it prevailed. ”

“ We collected all kinds of lumber, materials, and supplies of various descriptions, widths, and lengths, piling all of this around the mill site. It was a great source of concern to many passers-by where we possibly could be putting all this vast amount of lumber and supplies. Those that took the time to see could readily understand the large amount of lumber necessary to go into the wheel pit and the flume. ”

“ A friend deeply engaged in lumbering gives me a hint, which I think some owners of stony farms will find useful. He is obliged to run his logs down shallow, stony creeks, from the bottom of which large rocks often protrude, arresting the downward progress of his lumber. ”

“ A kiln car of edge-stacked lumber, properly piled, is made up of alternate solid sheets of lumber and vertical open-air spaces, so that the hot air and vapors rise naturally and freely through the lumber, drying both sides of the board evenly. The distribution of the heat and moisture being even and uniform, the drying process is naturally quickened, and there is no opportunity or tendency for the lumber to warp. ”

“ We will cut the other forest trees, and sow whereon we clear;
Our grain shall wave o'er valleys rich, our herds bedot the hills,
When our feet no more are hurried on to tend the driving mills;
Then no more a lumbering go, so no more a lumbering go,
When our feet no more are hurried on to tend the driving mills. ”

“ The next largest use of lumber is the grinding of it into pulp to be used in making paper for our books, magazines and newspapers, wrapping papers, etc. The woods used for this purpose are mostly spruce and hemlock. The great sources of supply of pulp-wood are Maine and Wisconsin, and large amounts are imported from Canada, which greatly lessens the drain on our own forests. ”