Contribution of mordern scientific methods in lumbering ?
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Answer:
Lumbering has four phases: Logging, Driving, Manufacturing, and Transport. The details varied depending on whether a homesteader was carving a farm out of a forest, an independent logger was felling and selling logs to a mill, or a commercial mill handled the entire process from logging through sales.
Early on, Logging was generally limited to the winter months, mid-November through mid-March weather permitting, when horses or oxen could drag felled and trimmed logs and sleighs of logs on snow-covered ground to collection points at the edge of a nearby river, lake, or later a railway stop. With the invention of big wheels, logs could be more easily moved throughout the year.
Driving involved getting logs from a collection point to a sawmill. Early on this generally meant floating logs down a river after the spring thaw, which was a dangerous ride for the men called "river hogs." When a stream was not available as was the case for Arcadia, railroads were used to get logs to mills throughout the year and much more safely.
Manufacturing wood products involved cutting logs into lumber and other wood products. Early on, this might have been as low tech as moving the log over a hole deep enough for a man to stand and then using a two-man saw to cut up and down the length of the log. Where a dependable source of moving water was available, water powered mills made the process more efficient, and just a couple men could produce many more board feet per day. Later steam-powered systems linked to belts could drive a series of saw blades and increase output dramatically.
Transporting wood products involved finding a buyer, taking the products to market, and selling wood products. Small local mills would sell to local people who carried lumber home with them. With improved manufacturing techniques, mills could produce much more lumber than was needed locally, and the excess could be taken to market by sailing ship, steam ship, rail, and eventually trucks.