Forest Trail Handbook

SECTION VIII.—MISCELLANEOUS PRACTICES

39.—PRACTICE

The following suggestions are worth the study of alt users of this handbook:

Good practice—

1. To use bits of rags or paper, or any other mark easily obliterated, to mark preliminary location lines.

2. To start to dig tread from the grade line.

3. To use the undercut method of digging.

4. To have grader stand on the lower side of the grade line in order that he can draw the dirt outward and shape the dirt rail without the need for a shovel.

5. To use shovels sparingly on the average trail job.

6. To have the foreman designate sections 25 feet to 50 feet long for each man, to prevent bunching of men.

7. To have the foreman equipped with a measuring stick to check up width of tread.

8. To use "single jacks" on drills in soft rock.

9. To use 40 percent explosives for rock work.

10. To use 20 percent explosives for stumping.

11. To study the comparative cost in time and material in use of explosives as against labor for the doing of a given job.

12. To do all blasting just before noon or evening quitting time whenever practicable.

13. To have at least one wheelbarrow on every primary trail job.

14. To have plenty of tools and to have sharp ones in the hands of every man who uses an edged or pointed tool.

15. To make camps comfortable for men.

16. To serve good, substantial food, and to go light on fancy stuff.

17. To have cooks carry hot food to men on the job rather than serve cold lunches or to walk men long distances to dinner.

18. To treat men fairly and to expect and get a full day's work from everyone.

19. To discharge promptly those who do not give a full day's work.

20. To discharge promptly the chronic "kicker."

21. To measure carefully each week the amount of trail completed and to check cost of the output.

22. To mark mile points as construction work progresses.

Bad practice—

1. To blaze out preliminary location lines.

2. To start to dig tread from a point above the grade line.

3. To dig trails so wide that the use of a shovel becomes necessary.

4. To permit mattock men or swampers to select places to start work.

5. To make trails wider in good ground than on rough, steep places simply because it is easy and nice to do.

6. To follow recklessly the notion that use of explosives is cheaper than labor in the removal of small stumps and logs.

7. Blasting at any time the rock men or powder men might have holes ready to shoot.

8. To permit men to work with dull tools.

9. To use poles covered with dirt to span depressions unless very rot-resistant material is available.

10. To use nondurable poles under fill as a support.