Today huge trees can be felled with special tools that work very quickly and the entire operation is carried out by teams of specially trained lumbermen according to well organized plans. Methods of felling trees and converting them into logs are much the same in all forested areas.

One important consideration in lumbering in not to destroy an entire forest, but to cut down only mature trees and leave room for the younger ones to grow. In this way forests, which are part of our priceless heritage, can be kept alive.

Once a tree has been felled, the branches are removed with axes or special saws. The trunk is then cut into sections of the desired length and the bark stripped. The wood should then be left to season in the forest for a period ranging from three months to a year. Seasoning allows wood to dry gradually and thus avoids much of the cracking and splitting which can spoil it.

After the seasoning comes the problem of transporting the timber from the forest. Wood can be carried by lorry, railway trucks or river craft. But large pieces of timber are extremely difficult to transport, particularly if there are no roads and the terrain is rough.

One old method was to cut out ‘channels’ through a forest which followed steep slopes. The big logs would then be pushed along these channels and slid down the slopes.

This method damaged much of the wood and today timber is carried through forests by means of overhead cables. These are expensive to install but they move considerable quantities of timber quickly and thus recover their initial cost.