The logging of such trees requires special appliances.

Until recently all the improved methods were in forms of transportation, the felling still being done by hand with very long saws, Fig.

25, but now even the felling and sawing of logs in the forest is partly done by machinery.
[Illustration: Fig.25.A Twenty-Five Foot Saw used for Crosscutting Big Logs.] [Illustration: Fig.26.Hauling Big Logs by Donkey Engine.] To work the saw, power is supplied by a steam or gasoline engine mounted upon a truck which can be taken readily from place to place.
As the maximum power required is not over ten-horse-power, the apparatus is so light that it can be moved about easily.

The saw can be adjusted to cut horizontally, vertically, or obliquely, and hence is used for sawing into lengths as well as for felling.
_Falling beds._ Since the weight of a two hundred fifty foot fir is such that if the impact of its fall be not gradually checked the force with which it strikes the ground may split the trunk, a bed for its fall is prepared by the swampers.

Usually piles of brush are placed as buffers along the "falling line" so that the trunk will strike these.
If the tree stands on the hill side, it is thrown up hill, in order to shorten the fall.
After the felling comes the trimming of branches and knots and "rossing" of bark, to lessen the friction in sliding along the skidway.
_The skidway._ By the skidway in the Puget Sound region is meant a corduroy road.