Histories

Newspaper Date : 5/23/1879 12:00:00 AM Volume : 3 Number : 5 Page : 1 Column : 6-7 Newspaper : Review Description : Description of taking out long timber. Transcription : How They Do It. We are going to speak of long timber now, and this is how it's done: Two men walk up to a great big strapping cork pine tree with a cross-cut saw in hand, and after pulling said saw through the butt of the tree, down to the ground comes the monarch of the forest with a report equal to the canonading of the "Wilderness" or some other great battle. The axman immediately falls upon the prostrate 'element' with his mighty weapon and procedeth to "skin it" (or 'rass it,' as the more delicate say) with a vengeance comprehensible by those only who have served and died in the cause. The top is cut off and then a string of four to six horses are attached to the timber, and under the influence of the chap with an infant pike-pole and the double-lunged man who "hollers," the animals move off to the skidway with the big stick, where "Bony" or some other noted individual who has bled and died for his country, loadeth the same onto the cars. The next thing you see is something else [Applause]; that is to say, something we haven't yet spoken about, but that we are going to speak about; that is to say, you see the locomotive 'puffing off' down towards Lake Huron, "where distance lends enchantment to the view" [excuse these tears], with a train load of about 25,000 feet of this 'ere sort 'o timber. Arriving at the banking ground the same is unloaded into the canal and there rafted. The next thing you observe is the tug Vulcan or Torrent moving off (Ball if you must, but mop your face and eyes on your own shirt-sleeve) south-east with a raft of from one to two million feet of this here-to-fore mentioned timber in tow, bound for Tonawanda, Toledo, Cleveland, or some other big eastern market. Your attention next will be called (through the agency of our blow with a cant hook over your left ear, by the 'fellah' with a read sash) to the same state of affairs we previously outlined, viz: cutting, skidding, loading, hauling, etc., and if you look right smart you will discover the tugs returning across the Bay after more rafts of the generous kind. And that is 'how they do it' at the rate of about forty millions a year, more less [Will somebody please sing something].