LARRY'S RAMBLE: Low Impact Logging done right

Monday, March 10, 2014

Low Impact Logging done right

Bringing out a load - click to enlarge
Photo: Gabor Degre Bangor Daily News

Logging is a kind of dirty business. The ground often gets treated poorly, not on purpose by heavy machinery causes ruts, cuts and digs things up badly. It's not the operators nor the machines fault, it's just the way things work. Logging with horses changes that. While the work takes longer the landowner ends up with the same amount of money. Horses can't work at the speed of machines, but with the money not spent on upkeep and ownership costs of harvesters and skidders that part of the money pretty much evens out too.
When I was a boy in the 1940's and 50's a neighbor owned a sawmill, a portable one. He also owned 22 pair of these horses, Belgians, a tough, hardworking breed. My uncle Fred ran the mill as a sawyer. The horses dragged to loads from the woods to the mill, and the sawed lumber to the road. The mill moved from place to place. Now the mills are stationary and much larger and trucks do the work of hauling - except in the woods. Some of the old ways may be coming back.