TIMBER

The individualism of the mountaineer has not made of him a scientific

inventor, but this marked trait of character has developed his

self-reliance and resourcefulness. He may not know, or care to know, in

figures the degree of the angle at which the mountain slopes. Probably

he has never heard of the clinometer by which geological surveyors

arrive at such information. Yet the untrained mountain man seeing a

stream gushing down a steep escarpment knows how to divert it to his own

best use.

Sometimes he set his tub mill, or the wheel, at the most advantageous

point to grind his corn into meal. If, however, his house happened to be

near no stream he had a simpler method for grinding his corn, a way his

forbears learned from the Indian, or heard about through his Scotch

ancestors. He rounded two stones, about the size of the average dishpan,

with great patience. Bored a hole in the center of the top one, placed

the two in a hollowed log and patiently, laboriously poured corn, a few

grains at a time, into the opening. With the other hand he turned the

top stone by means of a limber branch attached to a rafter overhead, the

other end of which was thrust into a small hole near the rim of the top

stone. In this way he kept the top stone moving, slowly, steadily. The

Scotch called this simple handmill a quern. It was a laborious way of

grinding meal.

It has amazed men of the U. S. Geological Survey to find that the corn

patch of the mountaineer often slants at an angle of fifty degrees so

that it is impossible to plow. The mountaineer cultivates such a patch

entirely with a hoe. When the mountain side, crop and all, slides down

to the base he bears the ill luck with patience and fortitude and tries

to find a remedy. He hauls rocks to brace the earth and plants another

crop. He had no time to sit and bemoan his fate. Through such trials,

and because neighbors were so far removed, his self-reliance and

resourcefulness were of necessity developed. The mountain man learned

early to face alone the hazards of life in the forest; first of all was

defense of his home against wild beasts and the Indian. He knew the

danger to life and limb from fallen trees, treacherous quicksand,

swollen creeks, the peril of slipping mountain sides after heavy rains.

Of necessity he relied upon himself; he could not wait for a neighbor to

help pull the ox out of the ditch. He learned early to make his own

crude farm implements at his own anvil. In short, he had to be

jack-of-all-trades--blacksmith, tanner, barber, shoemaker, wagoner, and

woodsman.

Men of the Blue Ridge did not clear their land after the manner of the

German farmer in Pennsylvania, who uprooted his trees. Instead, it was

done by belting the tree. He notched a six-inch band around the trunk,

removed the bark which prevented the sap from going up and thus killed

the tree from lack of nourishment. A field of such trees he called a

deadening. The roots were left to rot and enrich the soil but the

hillsides were so steep that the fertility from wood soil soon washed

away and another deadening had to be made before another crop could be

planted. Though crops were scant, the forest itself was ample and

sometimes brought him rich returns if he managed right.

A timber cruiser would come into the community, prospecting for a lumber

company, and examine the standing timber. After he reported back to the

company, a lawyer was sent to sound out the landowners--to see if they

were willing to sell their surface rights. When the legal matters were

attended to, the lumber company sometimes bought as much as seventy

thousand acres of forest. Woodsmen were brought in to work along with

the mountain men. Portable sawmills were set up and busy hands--sawyers,

choppers--set to work leveling the giant trees.

The owners calculated it would take twenty-five years to cull out all

the large timber and by the time that job was finished there would be a

second growth ready to cut. With this in view, hardwood and rich walnut

were cut and used with utter extravagance and disregard for their great

worth; full-sized logs of the finest grade were used for building barns,

planks of black walnut found their way into porch floors, walnut posts

were used freely for fencing by the mountaineer himself.

So profuse was the supply up until a quarter century ago that no thought

was given to its possible disappearance through wasteful methods of

lumbering, frequent forest fires, and the woodsman's utter carelessness

and disregard for the future.

A timber cruiser in Knott County, Kentucky, once came upon an old woman

chopping firewood beside the door of her one-room cabin. Upon

examination he found it to be a fine species of walnut. After talking

with her he learned that she owned hundreds of acres of timber, much of

which was covered with walnut such as she was ruthlessly burning in the

fireplace. He spent days going over the acreage and offered the old

woman a fabulous price for the larger timber, at the same time assuring

her, through written agreement, protection of all her rights. But the

old creature, who lived alone, dismissed the timber cruiser with a wave

of her bony hand. "Begone!" she chirped, "I don't want to be scrouged by

your crew comin' in on my land choppin' down trees and settin' up them

racket-makin' contrapshuns under my very nose. No how such as that

skeers off the birds in the forest." Though the cruiser agreed that his

company would even be willing to keep a distance of three miles in all

directions from her little cabin, the old woman still refused, and when

he tried again in honeyed tones to persuade her she up with the ax and

chased him off the place.

The mountain man, however, often seized the opportunity to dispose of

his timber and set to work with a vim to get it to the nearest market,

though such was a mighty task. Having cut down the larger trees, he

rolled the logs down the mountain side toward the watercourse. Usually

the creeks were much too shallow to carry rafts of logs so he

constructed a splash dam at a suitable point between the high banks of

the stream. A splash dam consisted of two square cribs of logs filled

with great stones. Against these two crude piers he built a dam in the

middle of which he placed an enormous gate. He remembered how he had

made rabbit traps when he was a boy. So now, on a bigger scale, he made

a figure-four trap-trigger for his splash dam. On one side, the gate

which he built in the middle, pushed against two projecting logs in the

dam. A long slender pole like a telegraph pole held the gate in place.

This is the trigger pole. Thus dammed, the water soon formed a deep lake

into which strong-armed men threw the logs.

Gate and trigger are in readiness. The mountaineer has only to wait for

a tide, which is often not long in coming. Even overnight, even in a few

short hours, a stream has been known to swell from sudden rains or snow,

bringing the water with a rush down steep mountain sides and carrying

with it the logs that were left strewn on the slopes or near the bank.

Men work with feverish haste to roll the logs into the stream. The whole

is swept into the dam, the trigger is released at the right moment and

the rush of water with its freight of logs sweeps through the open gate

with a mighty roar, carrying its cargo for miles on down to the river.

Zealous workers have been known to splash out in this fashion as many as

thirteen thousand logs in one season.

Timber so floated down the Big Sandy River made at its mouth the largest

round timber market in the world and brought untold fortunes to

capitalists who ruthlessly cut down the virgin forests along its banks.

Here at the waterfront taverns a motley crowd of loggers and raftsmen,

woodsmen and timbermen, were wont to gather for nights of revelry. The

old taverns rang with as rollicking songs as ever enlivened a western

bar in gold-rush days. Here too woodsman and logger rubbed shoulders

betimes with Devil Anse Hatfield and Randall McCoy, for it was to the

mouth of Big Sandy, the village of Catlettsburg, the county seat of

Boyd, that the clansmen repaired to reinforce their ammunition for

carrying on their bloody feud.

And here, in the spring of the year, the calliope could be heard far

down the Ohio as the showboat steamed into view. Shouts of glee went up

from the throats of youngsters along the way as they rushed excitedly

for the river-bank to watch the approach of the flag-decked boat. And

when the _Cotton Blossom_ had docked and deckhands had made her fast to

her moorings with rope and chain, a gayly uniformed band--led by a drum

major in high-plumed hat and gold-braided coat--with sounding horns and

quickened drumbeat walked the gangplank, leaped nimbly to shore, and

paraded the narrow winding village street.

Old and young wept over the death of Uncle Tom and hissed viciously the

slave-whipping Legree. Woodsman or logger, who had imbibed too freely at

the waterfront taverns, sometimes arose and cursed angrily the

black-mustachioed villain. Whereupon the town marshal patted the

disturber on the shoulder (the officer always had passes to the showboat

for himself and family and friends), wheedled the giant mountaineer into

silence, and left him dozing in his seat.

When the curtain fell on the last act, woodsmen and raftsmen and their

newfound friends in the village returned to the riverfront tavern to

make a night of it.

By sunup the crew would be on its way back up to the head of Big Sandy

to make ready for another timber run.