HARVESTING AND UTILIZATION OPPORTUNITIES FOR FOREST RESIDUES in the northern rocky mountains USDA Forest Service General Technical Report INT-110 Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service The use of trade, firm, or corporation names in this publication is for the information and convenience of the reader. Such use does not con- sti tute an official endorsement or approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of any product or service to the exclusion of others which may be suitable. This Proceedings was photographed from copy submitted by the contribu- tors. The Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station does not assume responsibility for any errors contained herein. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report INT-110 March 1981 HARVESTING AND UTILIZATION OPPORTUNITIES FOR FOREST RESIDUES in the northern rocky mountains Symposium Proceedings Nov. 28-30, 1979 Missoula, Mont. Sponsored by : Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, USDA Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of Montana Forest Products Research Society Inland Empire Section INTERMOUNTAIN FOREST AND RANGE EXPERIMENT STATION U. S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Ogden, Utah 84401 HARVESTING EFFICIENCY--A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Vernon W. Meyer National Harvesting Specialist USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry ABSTRACT Many significant and far-reaching changes have taken place in the logging industry since its inception in the mid-17th century. But technological advances aimed at improved timber utilization have not come about quickly. It has been an incremental and continuous process, but progress can often be noted only by looking backward. KEYWORDS: 1ogging, harvesting, history Although historical documents do not reveal the exact time, man probably began using wood at or about the same time he developed a taste for apples--no doubt first as a tool and she1 ter and later as a raw material for refined, durable goods. Why? Because wood, millions of years ago, had the same desirable qualities as it has today. Namely, it produces heat when burned, it is easy to work, its strength/weight ratio is excellent, and it is renewable. Because of my admiration and respect for loggers of a1 1 eras, please note I did not say wood was easy to obtain. "Harvesting" of timber is a term applied to many sequential activities. It begins with the designation of what timber is to be removed and what is to be left and ends with reforestation. The actual cutting of timber and its movement from the woods to the mill is one of the harvesting activities. This I refer to as logging--and it is the activity at which most of my comments will be aimed. Because many changes have been made in logging eqtiipment and techniques, I think it is proper for us to pause at this time and look back, if for no other reason than to allow a redefinement of perspective. Many years ago, a farsighted individual named Renan predicted "that the 20th century wi 11 spend a great deal of time picking out of the wastebasket the values the 19th century threw into it." So during the next few minutes, let's take a look through the logger's wastebasket. When the United States formally declared its independence, our country con- sisted of 13 States, many more wild animals than people, and seemingly limitless tracts of forests. Philadelphia was the largest city, with 34,000 people. Nine out of 10 new Americans lived in the country, scattered along the eastern seaboard from Maine to northern Florida. Yet, because of the high birth rate and large influx of immigrants from the Old World, the population of both town and country was increasing rapidly. Still, in 1776 the original states contained mainly expansive wilderness and very few farms. To the colonists, vast eastern forests of more than a million square miles represented a dark and impenetrable place that harbored wild animals and "dangerous" Indians. But these coloni sts were determi ned and tough. They would remove this obstacle and then plant their crops. True, they used trees for ships, houses, fuel, tools, etc. , but there were more than they could use. They had to "let daylight in," and this they accomplished with unrelenting determination. Most settlements had a "lumbering" industry because of the abundance of timber, but these were on a small scale, used primitive methods, and supplied mainly local needs. In the beginning, logs were split with a froe or sawn on a pitsaw. Supposedly, the first power-driven sawmil 1 in America was established in 1633. Depending on which book you read, it was in Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, or Virginia. The number of sawmil 1s grew quickly. Most were waterpowered and were therefore located along streams which also provided transportation for the logs. Soon, gangsaws were developed that could cut many more logs per day and the prob,lem of keeping logs at the mil1s arose. Because of increasing populations and growing export markets, lumbering became a rapidly expanding enterpri se. By 1682, Maine a1 one had 24 sawmi 11s. Consequently, logging operations had to expand as well to keep the mills supplied with logs. The lumbering industry as we know it today began in the Northeast. White pine was the "king tree. " Almost all of the northeastern states had an apparently never-ending supply of this great species, but the region we know as Maine today was particularly suitable for large-scale commercial logging. This was because of the desirable combination of uninterrupted expanses of timber and the preponderance of rivers and streams to float logs to the mills. Men with money and vision began buying up timberland in Maine. Much of it was purchased at the rate of 12.5 cents per acre. It is reported that a Philadelphia banker and politician by the name of William Bingham purchased 2.1 million acres of pine and spruce in one tract in the Penobscot country in 1790. Immigrants from Scotland and Ireland as we1 1 as ski 1led French-Canadi ans provided the bulk of the manpower needed to cut and move this timber. The method of logging was pretty much standard. It was called "white water logging." With the coming of the "fall freezeup," small armies of loggers took to the woods. Logging camps were located up the streams from the mills. Trees were felled with axes and bucked to length with crosscut saws. The logs were then manhandled onto a crude skidding device called a go-devil to yard to the main road. The go-devil was a section of a forked birch that had a crosspiece fastened midway of the V; it was pulled by a team of horses. At the main road, the logs were loaded with the help of gravity onto sleds and pulled by oxen to the streambank. Throuahout the bitter cold winters. sled loads of loas were hauled to the river's edge ind stashed there in gigantic-piles. To make t6e sleds move with greater ease, water was sprinkled on the snowpacked road during the night. By morning it was frozen hard and $1ick. Snubbing lines attached to stumps were used to slowI the sleds when going down hills. A1 though the bitter cold and deep snow provided miserable working conditions, winter logging was conventional for many years. Available technology permitted few options. When spring finally arrived and the streams began flowing, the piles of logs were pushed into the rushing waters by loggers with long, steel-tipped pike poles. Thus began the spectacular log drives downstream to the mi 11s. Along the way the logs would inevitably jam and have to be freed by the daring drivers. This was one of the most dangerous jobs of the white water logger. Yet most survived the drives to "blow in" their wages of about $20 a month in the mi11 towns where wine, women, and song were always in plentiful supply. The basic tools and equipment used in early logging consisted of the ax, one- man crosscut saws for bucking, sleds, a type of cant hook, and pike poles. Power was supplied by man, oxen, and horses aided by gravity. Axes have been in use since the stone age--but refined over time into finely balanced and very. effective tool s. Saws are of more recent times, a1 though used in Europe as early as the middle of the 15th century. Crosscuts became widely used in this country in the early 1800's. Almost all of them were manufactured in America because imports from Europe were expensive and difficult to obtain. Crosscut saws increased log produc- tion considerably and reduced wood losses from chips previously produced by axes. For reasons difficult to imagine, until 1880 saws were used for bucking only. Why it took 40 years for fallers to realize that saws could be made longer and used by two men to fell a tree is not understood. But when axes gave way to felling saws, production climbed with a resultant decrease in safety hazards. The direction of fall of a sawn tree was more predictable than a tree felled with an ax. The ax was still used to put in the undercut, Several tools and devices that made logging easier, safer, and often more productive were invented and put into use in the Northeast. The Peavey was invented and first manufactured by Joseph Peavey near Bangor, Maine, in 1858. A large boom for sorting logs was devised in 1825, and this idea has been used widely. The Bangor snubber, a device for controlling the speed of sled loads of logs on steep hills, was invented by Bangor men sometime in the 1830's.