The History of Mechanization in Logging

The history of the development of logging technology is rather important for the future of the industry. This chapter shown that the growth in labour productivity was best seen as consisting of two stages, a period of rapid growth until the early 1960s followed by a period of slower growth. Delimbing remains one of the least mechanised of all the basic operations in the logging process. The location of delimbing varies; before the war and the widespread introduction of tractor skidding, it was generally performed on the forest floor. Electrification was viewed as the best way of mechanising many processes in Soviet industry and already in agriculture electric tractors were being used. The extraction of timber from the upper to the lower landing was one of the first areas of logging operations to be mechanised. The gradual mechanisation of work at the lower landing is far less interesting a story than that of the mechanisation of logging.