Some Words Woodsmen Use

ABSCISSION-- The natural separation of parts of a plant (such as flowers, bark, fruit, leaves, or branches) by the breakdown of the absciss layer, which is a layer of cells across the base of a branch or embedded in the bark through which the leaf or branch or other part breaks off.

ACCESS ROAD-- A road built into isolated stands of commercial timber so they can be reached by loggers, fire fighters, and others.

ACID WOOD-- Wood cut for use in plants that manufacture charcoal, acetic acid, and methanol by destructive distillation. It is sometimes called distillation wood or chemical wood.

ARBORICULTURE-- The science and art of growing trees, especially as ornamental or shade trees. Distinguished from silviculture or forestry (the science and art of growing trees as a forest or for lumber) and from tree horticulture or pomology (growing trees for fruit, nuts, etc.).

ASSOCIATION-- As used in botany: An assemblage of plants, usually over a wide area, that has one or more dominant species from which it derives a definite aspect.

BACKFIRE-- A fire intentionally set along the inner edge of a control line located ahead of an advancing fire, for the purpose of facilitating control by a widening of the control line and the removal of intervening combustible materials.

BALL-HOOTER-- A slang term loggers use for a man who rolls or slides logs down a hillside.

BARBER CHAIR-- In loggers' slang, a stump on which is left standing a slab that splintered off the tree as it fell. Generally it indicates careless felling.

BLAZE-- A mark made on the trunk of a standing tree by painting or chipping off a spot of bark with an ax. It is used to indicate a trail, boundary, location for a road, trees to be cut, and so on.

BOLE-- The stem or trunk of a tree, usually the lower, usable or merchantable portion of the tree trunk.

BOOM-- (1) Logs or timbers fastened together end to end and used to hold floating logs. The term includes also the logs enclosed. There are many varieties depending on construction and use, such as bag, barge, bracket, catch, fender, fin, glancing, holding, limber, pocket, receiving, round, rudder, shear, sorting, storage. (2) Projecting arm of a log-loading machine, which supports the log during loading. May be either of the swinging or the rigid type.

BROADLEAF-- A tree with two cotyledons, or seed leaves; it usually is deciduous that is, it sheds all its leaves annually. The broadleaved trees, such as maple and oak, have relatively broad, flat leaves, as contrasted with the conifers, such as pine, which have narrow leaves, or needles.

BUCK-- To saw felled trees into logs or bolts; to bring or carry, as to "buck" water.

BURL-- A hard, woody growth on a tree trunk or on roots, more or less rounded in form. It is usually the result of entwined growth of a cluster of buds. In lumber, a burl produces a distorted and unusual (but often attractive) grain.

BURNS-- Areas in which fires have injured the forest.

CAMBIUM-- A soft layer, strip, or cylinder of living cells, one row thick, between the living bark and living wood of a tree. During the growing season its cells divide continuously, giving origin to the wood tissues and the bark tissues.

CAMP INSPECTOR-- To loggers, a man who drifts from camp to camp, trying out the food and living accommodations but working as little as possible.

CANOPY-- In a forest, the cover of green leaves and branches formed by the crowns of all the individual trees. Its density is ordinarily expressed as the amount (or percentage) of the ground that would be completely shaded by the forest if the sun were straight overhead.

CELLULOSE-- A complex, threadlike material, the molecules of which are made up of hundreds or thousands of sugar residues present in all plant materials. Wood, cotton, flax, and hemp fibers, and similar fibers, are the main sources of cellulose. It is the raw material for making paper, films, artificial silk, cellulose lacquers.

CHORE BOY-- To loggers, one who cleans the sleeping quarters, cuts firewood, builds fires, and carries wood. Synonyms: Flunky, buck, bull cook, barroom man.

CLEAR CUTTING-- A method of cutting that removes all merchantable trees on the area in one cut.

CLIMAX-- A plant community that does not change unless there is a change in the climate. It is the culminating stage in natural plant succession. The plants in a climax community are favored by the environment which they themselves create, and so are in balance with it.

CLONE-- The aggregate of plants derived from a single seeding by means of vegetative propagation such as the rooting of cuttings or slips, budding, or grafting. Every member of a clone has the same heredity, so that under uniform environment a group of plants from a single clone is quite uniform. Well-known tree clones are the Lombardy poplar, Koster's blue spruce, the Irish yew, and the named varieties of fruits and nuts.

CORDUROY ROAD-- A road built of logs or poles laid side by side across the roadway, usually in low or swampy places.

CROWN-- The upper part of a tree, including the branches with their foliage.

CRUISE-- A survey of forest lands to locate and estimate volume and grades of standing timber; also, the estimate obtained in such a survey. ("Scaling" is the measurement of the volumes of individual logs after the trees have been felled.)

CULL-- (1) A tree or log of merchantable size that is unmerchantable because of defects. (2) The deduction from gross volume made to adjust for defect. (3) To cut a small portion of a stand by selecting one or a few of the best trees. (4) To reject a tree, log, or board in scaling or grading.

CUT-- The yield, during a specified period, of products that are cut, as of grain, timber, or, in sawmilling, lumber.

DEADMAN-- (1) A timber to which the end of a hawser or cable is secured. (2) A log buried in the ground, by which a guy line is anchored.

DEFOLIATE-- To shed leaves; to lose leaves: to cause a tree to lose its leaves.

DIAMETER LIMIT-- A specified diameter at breast height (4 1/2 feet above the ground) above which all trees are cut, under a diameter-limit cutting agreement.

DINGLE-- (1) The roofed-over space or "alley") between the kitchen and sleeping quarters of an old-style logging camp, commonly used as a storeroom. (2) The shed-like structure for storing food supplies in the newer type camps.

DINKEY-- A small logging locomotive.

DONKEY DOCTOR-- One who maintains and repairs donkey engines, which are portable steam engines equipped with drum and cable, used in cable logging, or gasoline or Diesel engines similarly equipped.

DRIVE-- Logs or timbers that are being floated on a stream from the forest to a mill or shipping point. It is also a verb.

DRUPE-- A simple, fleshy, or pulpy fruit; a stone fruit, as peach, plum, and cherry.

DRY-KI-- Trees killed by flooding. Often found in areas flooded by beaver dams.

ECOLOGY-- The study of the effect of environment on plants and animals, and of their influence on the environment. ENDEMIC Indigenous or native in a restricted locality; confined naturally to a certain limited area or region, in contrast to epidemic.

ENVIRONMENT-- All the external conditions that affect the life and growth of a plant or animal. Air, sunlight, rain, wind, and the resultant temperature and moisture are parts of the environment of plants.

ENZYME-- An organic catalyst (or stimulator) produced by an animal or plant organism. It accelerates such chemical reactions as splitting starch into sugar. Almost all vital processes involve enzyme action. Animal and plant enzymes are much alike.

EXOTICS-- Nonnative or foreign species, introduced to a continent or geographic region from outside its natural range. Scotspine, Norway spruce, Siberian elm, and Russian mulberry are examples of exotic tree species.

FIREBREAK-- An existing barrier, or one constructed before a fire occurs, from which all or most of the inflammable materials have been removed; designed to stop or check creeping or running but not spot fires, or to serve as a line from which to work and to facilitate the movement of men and equipment in fire suppression.

FIRE EDGE-- The line, usually irregular, to which a fire has burned at a given moment; the boundary of a fire at a given moment.

FUNGUS-- (singular) ; FUNGI (plural) A low form of plant life having no chlorophyll, reproducing by spores, having a mycelium, and living as a parasite or saprophyte on organic matter. The fungi are numerous on and in soil- where they aid in breaking down organic debris to humus.

GENETICS-- The science that seeks to explain resemblances and differences between plants or animals related by descent.

GIRDLING-- The act of encircling the stem of a living tree with cuts that completely sever bark and cambium and often are carried well into the outer sapwood.

GO-DEVIL-- A small, short sled without a tongue, used in skidding logs.

GRAFTING-- Act or process of inserting a cion, less strictly a bud, of a specified variety into a stem, root, or branch of another plant so that a permanent union is effected, especially for purposes of propagation.

GROUND WATER-- Water that stands or flows beneath the ground surface in soil or rock material which is thoroughly saturated. The upper surface of this saturated zone is called the water table.

GUM-- As applied to naval stores products: The raw product (oleoresin) which exudes from the wood of a living pine tree when a wound is made through the bark into the living tissues.

HABITAT-- The kind of place where a plant or animal naturally grows or lives.

HAYWIRE OUTFIT-- A logging operation that has poor equipment; originally, makeshift repairs in harness.

HEAD-- (of a fire) The hottest, most active forepart of a blaze.

HEARTWOOD-- The central portion of the trunks of trees, entirely dead and without function; usually darker and more durable in service than the outer portion or sapwood.