Hardwood Logs: Tree Felled with Notch and Back Cut, Limbed and Bucked

Logs come from a felled tree. Cut a V-shaped notch on the side you want it to fall, then a back cut from the other side toward it; the strip left between them is the hinge that steers the fall. Then cut off the branches (limbing) and saw the trunk into logs (bucking). The picture: fallers on springboards beside a notched conifer, Clallam County, Washington, about 1905 (MOHAI 5981): the notch is the same on any tree.