How they log in Spain
(Continued from PageD
gasoline. Starting the siphoning
process with his mouth, one of
the men filled three five-liter cans,
measured the remaining amount
with a stick, and re-capped the
drum. Then, carrying axes, lunch
buckets and the gas cans, we
moved out of the little town (I
never learned the name of this
place) and started up the valley,
following a rocky footpath which
led between the fields. I carried
one of the cans of gasoline.
We walked about three
kilometers in silence, our breath
showing white in the damp air.
Near the head of the valley we
turned off the path and cut
straight up through the pine
forest, and after a few minutes of
hard climbing reached a cache of
chain saws and oil cans which had
been stowed away under a tree.
Here we built a fire, sat down
and ate breakfast of bread,
cheese, sizzling chunks of bacon
cooked on sticks, and local wine
from a variety of bottles and
botas. Then, after a cigarette, the
saws were filled and the day's
work began. The maderos worked
in two teams of two, the fifth man
working alone I stayed with one
team all day
Essentially, one man worked
with an axe as a bark peeler, while
the other, working mostly with a
chain saw (a small, Swedish
model), felled and limbed the
trees.
The bark peeler would search
out trees (only Scotch Pine was
cut the day I was there) which had
been marked previously by
foresters with an axe blaze and a
die-stamp on the uphill side. He
would peel the bark off these
trees, from breast height down to
the stump, with brisk shaving
motions of his short-handled,
broad-headed axe.
Once the trees had been
marked this way, the second man
would come along with his chain
saw and fell the tree, using the
traditional downhill wedge type of
cut.
Then both of the maderos
would go to work on the tree, the
saw man limbing and topping, the
bark peeler shaving off the bark,
which collected on the ground in
long, curling, fragrant strips. The
sun had broken through, and
beads of sap stood out like tiny
amber beads on the clean surface.
As the tree was limbed it settled
gradually to the ground. When
the saw man was finished, he too
would take up an axe and,
rotating the log, the two worked
together peeling the opposite
side.
When the log was clean one of
them would pull a grimy tape
measure from the pocket of his
jacket and measure first the
length and then the midpoint
diameter of the log. These two
measurements, along with a third
identifying number, were
recorded in crayon on the butt
end of the log and, correspon
dingly, in a small notebook. Later,
from a book of tables, the volume
(in cubic meters, not board-feet as
in America) would be computed.
This was the basis on which the
maderos were payed.
i ne woric wem on seriously ana
without interruption until mid
afternoon, while I fiddled with my
camera, stumbled, and tried, not
always successfully, to keep out
of the way.
I also tried my hand at bark
peeling. It is apparently work
which requires more skill than
strength, and there is a real art to
shaving off long even pieces. The
result of my efforts was — and
this would be a generous
estimation — scruffy. Both of the
maderos, laughing good
naturedly, offered tips and en
couragement, and told me that
with a few day's practice I would
be as good at it as they were, a
dubious prediction which for
tunately went untested.
About 2:30 in the afternoon
everybody stopped work, the fire
was blown back to life, and lunch
was cooked. Most people had
brought, in small covered pots, a
sort of meat and bean stew which
had been half-cooked the night
before, and needed only to be
boiled briefly. Then, as cigarettes
were passed around, several men
opened small books of tables and,
seriously and intently, figured the
money value of the day's work so
far.
The work resumed then and
continued as before until nearly
7:30. The sky had cleared during
the day, but now clouds were
again settling in on the higher
slopes around us, and a fine
drizzle began to fall. Finally the
saws were drained, covered with
sheets of plastic, and stowed
under a tree. Lunch buckets,
bottles, axes and spare sweaters
were rounded up and, in the
voiceless evening, we made the
long walk back down the valley.
From across the fields, faintly,
came the tinkle of sheep bells.
The two men I worked with had
cut and peeled 47 trees.
I was told that most of the
timber cut in this part of Spain
was Scotch Pine, although I also
saw good stands of European
Silver Fir and some species of
small-leafed oak which I couldn't
identify. By Oregon standards the
trees are small, a good sized
specimen running around 18
inches in diameter at breast
height.
Forests are harvested on the
“selection method," that is, only
scattered, mature trees are cut in
any given stand. The climate is a
dry one, and the trees grow
slowly. I counted the growth rings
on several of the largest trees, and
their age always came to well over
150 years.
Lumber is generally sold as
"standing timber" directly to
private mill owners, like Abos,
who are responsible for both the
cutting and the transport of the
timber. The trees are dragged,
one or two at a time, by horse or
mule, to the nearest road, where
they are loaded on trucks for the
journey to the mills. Abos owned
two trucks (in the five ton class),
with relatively simple hydraulic
winches and booms mounted
behind the cabs.
"What about Nixon, eh?"
Thate night I drove with Abos
to the city of Jaca, about fifty
kilometers west. Several of the
maderos live there, and he per
sonally picked them up and drove
them home every day in his
Peugeot.
He described his mill in
Zaragoza, which employs about a
dozen people. He wanted to
modernize it, but thought that,
given the limited amount of forest
industry in Spain, his mill, and
others like it, had just about
"The bark is peeled from breast height downwards.”
Story and photos
by
Charles Holzhaeur
reached their optimum size.
Still, he was happy. He loved
Spain, and although expressing
cautious reservations about the
Franco dictatorship, generally
thought that "Franco has brought
us along the right road.”
Governments were governments
anyway, he said. "What about
Nixon, eh?"
I asked him if he thought there
was any danger of the Spanish
forests disappearing. He waved
his hand at the dry, ordered
countryside passing by the
window in the silvery light of the
quarter moon. "No, hombre," he
grinned. "In Spain we take care of
our land. The authorities would
never let it happen."
1
Logs ready for the trip to Zaragoza.