Page 13 - Moving the Earth_ The Workbook of Excavation

LAND CLEARING AND CONTROLS

LAND CLEARING 1.13

FIGURE 1.5 Trash carrier.

Handling Trunks. Tree trunks, even in sapling sizes, may be tricky and dangerous to push
around. One may ride up over the top of even a big dozer blade during ordinary pushing. It may
be put under tension by pushing while an end is blocked, which may result in its whipping with
great force against the cab, or into other machines or workers in the area. An operator must be vig-
ilant in avoiding such a situation.
When felled trees are pushed into heaps for burning, the piles contain so much air-space that
they may be very fire-resistant. Heavy branches and crooked trunks increase this difficulty.
Branches may be cut off and trunks cut into pieces to make more compact piles. Or the pieces
may be placed on an existing fire by a clamshell.
Subcontracts. If trees are to be removed which are of no value on the job, an attempt should be
made to sell them. To contractors desiring to confine themselves to dirt work, the best arrangement
is to get the customer, whether sawmill, firewood dealer, or whatever, to buy the trees on the stump
and cut and remove them. A danger is that the logger may fail to do the work in the time specified,
and so force contractors to do it themselves at the last moment. In making such an arrangement, the
disposal of the scrap wood and brush and the height of the stumps should be specified.
A sawmill operator is interested only in large, sound trunks, whereas a pulp or firewood worker can
use bulky branches also. The mill will ordinarily pay the best prices but do the least work toward
cleanup of the tract, unless it has an arrangement with pulp or firewood users to take its tops and limbs.
No one wants the rotten trees, crooked branches, and brush, but the lumbermen may agree to
burn them, if this is a part of local logging practice; or if the contractor accepts a complete cleanup
job as partial or full payment for the wood.
Cooperative clearing arrangements may be made in which the logger is assisted by the con-
tractor’s tractors or trucks.
Stump Height. Stump height may be determined by local law or lumbering custom. From a
clearing standpoint, high stumps are more easily removed than low ones, and are especially desirable
when the machinery is undersized for the job or depends primarily on winches. Low stumps are
more difficult to cut, particularly where the trunk flares out widely at the bottom, but do not
impede machines as much and can often be filled over and left.