Outdoor Sports and Games

by Claude Harris Miller

Before beginning to chop the tree, cut away all the brush, vines, and undergrowth around its butt as far as you will swing the axe. This is very important as many of the accidents with an axe result from neglect of this precaution. As we swing the axe it may catch on a bush or branch over our head, which causes a glancing blow and a possible accident. Be careful not to dull the axe in cutting brush. You can often do more damage to its edge with undergrowth no thicker than one’s finger than in chopping a tree a foot through. If the brush is very light, it will often be better to use your jack-knife.

The right way to chop a tree—make two notches on opposite sides

In cutting a tree, first make two nicks or notches in the bark on the side to which you wish it to fall and as far apart as half the diameter of the tree. Then begin to swing the axe slowly and without trying to bury its head at every blow and prying it loose again, but with regular strokes first across the grain at the bottom and then in a slanting direction at the top. The size of the chips you make will be a measure of your degree of skill. Hold the handle rather loosely and keep your eye on the place you wish to hit and not on the axe. Do not work around the tree or girdle it but keep right at the notch you are making until it is half way through the tree. Do not shift your feet at every blow or rise up on your toes. This would tire even an old woodchopper in a short time. See that you do not set yourself too fast a pace at first. A beginner always starts with too small a notch. See to it that yours is wide enough in the start.

The wrong way—this looks like the work of a beaver

When you have cut about half way through, go to the other side of the tree and start another notch a little higher than the first one. A skilled man can chop either right-or left-handed but this is very difficult for a beginner. If you are naturally right-handed, the quickest way to learn left-handed wood chopping is to study your usual position and note where you naturally place your feet and hands. Then reverse all this and keep at it from the left-handed position until it becomes second nature to you and you can chop equally well from either position. This you may learn in a week or you may never learn it. It is a lot easier to write about than it is to do.

When the tree begins to creak and show signs of toppling over, give it a few sharp blows and as it falls jump sideways. Never jump or run backward. This is one way that men get killed in the woods. A falling tree will often kick backward like a shot. It will rarely go far to either side. Of course a falling tree is a source of danger anyway, so you must always be on your guard.

If you wish to cut the fallen tree into logs, for a cabin, for instance, you will often have to jump on top of it and cut between your feet. This requires skill and for that reason I place a knowledge of axemanship ahead of anything else in woodcraft except cooking. With a crosscut saw, we can make better looking logs and with less work.

Next to knowing how to chop a tree is knowing what kind of a tree to chop. Different varieties possess entirely different qualities. The amateur woodchopper will note a great difference between chopping a second growth chestnut and a tough old apple tree. We must learn that some trees, like oak, sugar maple, dogwood, ash, cherry, walnut, beech, and elm are very hard and that most of the evergreens are soft, such as spruce, pine, arbor vitae, as well as the poplars and birches. It is easy to remember that lignum vitae is one of the hardest woods and arbor vitae one of the softest. Some woods, like cedar, chestnut, white birch, ash, and white oak, are easy to split, and wild cherry, sugar maple, hemlock, and sycamore are all but unsplitable. We decide the kind of a tree to cut by the use to which it is to be put. For the bottom course of a log cabin, we place logs like cedar, chestnut, or white oak because we know that they do not rot quickly in contact with the ground. We always try to get straight logs because we know that it is all but impossible to build a log house of twisted or crooked ones.