A LUMBER GAMP IN THE HIGHLANDS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145996, 30 November 1917, Page 7

A LUMBER GAMP IN THE HIGHLANDS.

NEWFOUNDLAND FORESTERS AT WORK. , A century ago, John, fourth Duke of Atholl, resolved, to plant the waste mountain sides of hie estates spruce and larch by the million. oy the end of the century, said he, bis descendants would reap a hundre<uo. f . what he had sown. The Napoleonic wars had taught Britain what scarcity of timber meant. ... ‘‘My plantations,” ho declared, will make np and probably bo productive on an income to a much greater amount than that of any subject in the Kingdom.” Ho said confidently that if , one T fourth part of his larches arrived at maturity by the end of the century, they would supply “all the demands or Great Britain for war or commerce. Ho planned 15,573 acres, mainly of barren mountain side, with 27,431,600 young trees. Many other northern landowners followed his lead. , For long Duke John's expectations seemed likely to be falsified. Great storms blew down hundreds of thousands of trees. The price of timber fell. Tho wooden ship on which he had based his plans made way for tho iron ship. As cheap rail and ocean transport developed, our timber merchants revelled in the loot of the vast virgin forests of Canada, the United States, and Scandinavia British forests, like British farms, could no longer compete in their own home markets against tin's fieod of foreign imports. Yet to-day his foresight is proving true. The great forests of Scotland, utilised mainly during the last two generations as shooting preserves, have suddenly become an enormously valuable Imperial asset Timber must be had in vast quantities for a hundred war purposes. Wo cannot import it. We must —now perforce,—rely on the resources of our own Island. Scotland is supplying more than its sha.ro. Men from the ends of the Empire are in the North to-day clearing the hills, felling and dispatching their giant trees with the expedition of a Western lumber camp. Most of them are not Westernors, however, hut Easterners, men from Ontario. Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, together with hundreds of picked Newfoundland lumbermen, wearing khaki, and serving under military discipline. To tho North there has come a sturdy batch of New Englanders. THE LUMBER CHUTE. This is a Newfoundland camp on the Athol Estate. A few days ago the Duchess of Atholl, after entertaining a party of woodmen guests, confessed that while she was glad to see them, and hoped to see more of them, her heart was heavy at the disappearance of her beloved woods. One can understand her grief. Here, up on the Craigvinean, the Craig of Goats, as it is rightly called, 800 feet above the sea level one gams round upon what was one of the most beautiful wooded scenes in Scotland. In the immediate neighbourhood are grouped a succession of fallen giants—great, noble timber. Some distance below a lumber camp can be seen. Along the steep middle ridge of the hillside runs a temporary mountain railway, built with lightning speed to transport tho logs to tho point where the great chute. 1400 feet long, falls vertically, down which tho thousands of great felled trunks—often rnore than half a ton in weight—slide thundering to the mill below. This mill has been completed in incredibly short time, and tho whole place has an air of hustling resolution. The rough wooden huts of tho men, and the simple, effective machinery, do not seem to belong to an old civilisation like ours. Flant-ed down here, one might imagine that yon were in Newfoundland. In truth, Newfoundland has transferred its ways to tho heart of Perthshire. ' “Those men work as though they are fighting against time,” said an old Scottish factor, somewhat resentfully, when 'he saw tho Newfoundlanders sot bo. “We are,” came tho ready reply. "That is what we are her© for, in war time.” At first tho Scotch woodsmen wore inclined to feel sore at tho unconventional methods of these newcomers, and various big challenges wore exchanged. The cutting-down of trees is a solemn affair. It ought to bo done with a certain stateliness. It ought—above all, to bo done spa ring.y, and with a_ certain nicety according to estate traditions. That is tho old British idea. But hero are men doing it wholesale, leaving nothing behind. It was necessary to find a means of carrying the great trees down from two high levels 1800 feet in all. Experienced local men advised a mountain railway equipped with winding drum and steel cables, etc., which would hare taken considerable timrf to construct, and would 1 have cost something probably. running into four figures. The Newfoundlanders laid a simple clnrtee, consisting of a triple line of trunks of trees forming a kind of running trough. Tlie total cost of this, apart from tho timber, which they cut on the spot, was a few score of pounds. Down this simple line, built in a few days by the men themselves, with a doping curve at the bottom to bring the monster logs easily to their place, tho great trees now descend. They come to rest in tho “Log Pond.” which has been built by damming the little stream which adjoins the sawmill in the meadow at the foot of the hill, and from thence are hoisted by the jack ladders into the mill. HoW THE NEWFOUNDLANDERS CAME. How have the Newfoundlanders come to Perthshire? Lumbering on a large scale is comparatively a new thing in Newfoundland itself. The timber growths of the Tenth Island lay mostly unappreciated until, less than’ half a generation ago, the Anglo-Newfound-land Development Company started its work at Grand Falls. In the spring of this year, when signs of a timber famine threatened, Mr. Mayson Beeton, of the Anglo-Newfoundland Company, suggested to Sir Edward Morris, the Prime Minister of Newfoundland, that a battalion of Newfoundland lumbermen might be organised for timber-cut-ting here. The suggestion came at the right moment, for on the previous day Mr. Long had written to Sir Edward Morris, asking for help of this kind. Mr. Beeton, with the Premier and the Director of Timber Supplies, at once went to Lord Derby. Within 24 hours the scheme for the Newfoundland Forestry Corps was arranged. Cables were set to work and recruiting had begun, the organisation and direction of the Newfoundlanders being left in Mr. Beoton’s hands. The men now at work so far number about 300, to he increased very shortly, it is hoped, with fresh drafts coming along, to about 1000. The officers including Major Sullivan, the 0.C., are all of them practical lumbermen, save perhaps the Adjutant, whose business it is to maintain military administration and discipline. No man is accepted for the Forestry Corps unless he is unfit for fighting, or is well over Jus-ear-

ly manhood, married and with. a.family. One veteran of over 60, a general utility man, boasts of 40 years’ experience in mills. Another has been nearly 60 years lumbering. There are boys in their mid-teen» here, top young to go to France to fight, but determined to do something to help to win the war. On Sunday afternoon one sees the forestry men making friends with the country folk in every village around, looking in every way smart, good soldiers. And when their battalion marcher; into Dnnkeld it is difficult to believe that these same well-set ranks are made up of backwoodsmen who have volunteered their service from tho freest life in tho world—-the life of tho woods. They have received a warm Scots welcome from all—from duke to cottager. Tho country around tho Craig of the Goats is as wildly beautiful as any Scotland has to show. The trees are magnificent. The lumber has been well cared for. Tho trees run straight and true and high. The axemen talk of some of tho timber lovingly, as a connoisseur would talk of fine wine. There was one spruce tree whose main trunk was over 100 ft. long. It was 29 inches in diameter at the stump, and ISin. in diameter 53ft. high. They got 97ft, of timber out of it. The woodsmen count the rings on the trees to toll their years, 90, 95, 100, 105 years old. Duke John planted well! Even while the Newfoundlanders are cutting down great stretches of the most beautiful countryside large numbers of young Scots women are at work planting new districts afresh, for Scottish landowners realise that under the conditions likely to prevail in the w'orid for some generations ahead their forests will be sources of essential national wealth.