Felling Difficult Trees
The Top Cut:
The top cut is the first of two cuts that result in an open faced notch. The notch is made on the side of the tree that faces the direction you want it to fall.
Important — begin at any height as long as you allow enough room for the undercut.
Important — cut downward at an angle of 70 degrees.
Stop when the cut reaches ¼ to ⅓ of the trunk’s diameter or when the cut reaches 80% of the tree’s diameter at breast height.
They came for the pines.
Masts for the majestic clippers of the age of sail, tremendous planks sent to the harbors
of the city of ships, the Kennebec becoming a river of wood,
as bearded lumberjacks in spiked shoes surfed the waves of logs.
The boreal forests of the first men, stripped clean into pastoral meadows
to feed ox and man. Wide, open fields filled with crew-cut youths bailing
hay in the August humidity, scything wheat, shucking corn.
Such farms are few now.
The unneeded meadows, making straw for livestock that no longer come,
now occluded as the forest returns.
The deciduous trees filling in gaps where conifers once were.
The pine needles of the past giving way to the leaves of the future.
And those leaves explode in the vibrant colors of New England’s autumn.
The season of fire.
The season of the Second Cleanse.
The Undercut:
The undercut is the second of two cuts that result in an open faced notch. The notch is made on the side of the tree facing the direction that you want it to fall.
Very Important — begin at the level that will create at least a 70 degree notch opening.
Important — cut upward at a 20 degree angle
Very important — stop when the cut reaches the end point of the face cut. Ideally, you have created a 90 degree notch opening.
They came for the people.
The Maine Insane Hospital, carved from Hallowell granite,
sits on the East side of the Kennebec in the gaze of the capitol rotunda
across the river. A shadowy reminder of those in the care of the State.
Inside are they we wish to forget.
From schizophrenic disassociation demon howling, to young women with hysteria.
Their towns had no homes for them, their families gave them no place.
So they sit inside those granite walls,
and wait to become members of the forgotten.
11,647 bodies in the Earth with no stones scattered in the ground.
No Hallowell granite to mark the passing.
“The best plan would be to burn down the shacks with all their filth.
Certainly, the conditions are not creditable to our state, and we
ought not to have such things near our front door.”
The State of Maine purchased Malaga Island through Order 133, dated December 14, 1911.
$471 the final price to steal a home.
The “maroon” population of Malaga Island were given until July 1, 1912 to vacate.
This unwanted scar on the new reputation of the Maine coast,
described in 1911 by the Lewiston Evening Journal as,
“Malaga The Homeless Island of Beautiful Casco Bay
Its Shiftless Population of Half-breed Blacks and Whites and
His Highness, King McKenney”, sarcasm dripping off the “royal” title.
They came in the dead of dark, agents of the State sent to remove the blight,
To find many of the homes gone, houses floated across the New Meadows River
The locals would not take them in, some died on the water.
Eight alive were sent from Malaga to the Maine School for the Feeble Minded, to live out their lives as anonymous state wards.
Six died there, to join the others already in the ground.
“338
Order of Council.
Party, Geo. C. Pease, Agent of Poor of Malaga Island
Subject, expense of removing deceased bodies of
Date, Nov. 21, 1912
State of Maine
In Council, Nov. 21, 1912
ORDERED
That the State Auditor is hereby authorized and directed to certify for payment to Geo. C. Pease, Agent of the Governor and Council for the destitute poor of Malaga Island, the sum of $227.41, for services and expenditures of said Geo. C. Pease, as Agent, in removing bodies of deceased persons from the cemetery of Malaga Island to Pownal for re-internment; said amount to be paid from the appropriation for support of paupers.
G.C. Kilgore
In Council, Nov. 21, 1912
Read and passed by the Council and by the Governor approved,
Cyrus W. Davis, Secretary of State”
Even the dead were not allowed to stay on Malaga Island.
“It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
280 women were sterilized by the State of Maine as the School for the Feeble-Minded transitioned into what they called “Pineland”.
The State called them “feeble-minded”.
The State called them “insane”.
The State called it “segregate and sterilize”, “feeble-mindedness” a disease to be eradicated lest it drown us in cultural decay.
The State taking the uterus as a condition of release.
Your children for your freedom.
Her name was Eleanor Chase Libby.
She was 23 when she escaped from what was then the “Pownal State School”, classified as sub-normal, not allowed to marry, only wanting to build a life in her illegitimate marriage and with her man.
“I ain’t feeble-minded” she screamed at her trial, before the State set her free.
Her uterus intact. The exception to prove the rule.
Running her only option,
“I knew that I would never get out of there.”
Many never did.
The Felling Cut:
The back cut is the third and final cut and is made on the opposite side of the notch. The back cut disconnects almost all of the tree from the stump leaving a hinge that helps to control the tree’s fall.
Important — begin on the opposite side of the notch at the same level as the notched corner.
Important — cut flat along a horizontal plane.
Very important — stop at the point that will leave a hinge width that is 1/10 the tree’s diameter.
This is the simplest of all back cuts.
Other back-cutting techniques may be required for felling difficult trees.
This is the season of fire.
This is the season of the Second Cleanse.
The forest stripped away, people stripped away.
The land her skin broken and bleeding from the strain.
We thought the trees just cleansed our summertime air.
But there is a Second Cleanse.
This is the season of fire.
This is the season of the Second Cleanse.
When autumnal leaves burst in orange and vermillion,
They are pulling up the blood of their lost boreal brethren.
They are pulling up the blood of lost human souls left to rot in granite boxes.
They are pulling up the blood of those ripped from Malaga.
They are pulling up the blood of every stolen uterus.
Until they cannot bear the burden any longer,
and fall to the Earth exhausted in the October wind.
And the trees quietly wait for the next season.
For new soldiers to stem the blood tide.
To begin again. And hope for the last.
