The Century of Forest Improvements

These you must see at the Century of Forest Improvements exhibition!

“Iron ball”

At the end of the 1950s, a drag-line cable method was used in the logging areas in Northern Finland. Drag-line cable clearing method involved two crawler tractors moving parallel approximately 30-40 metres apart. There was a 100-150 metre long cable between the tractors, weighed down by a large iron ball. The residual stand left standing during clear cutting was felled pulling their roots up, while the surface of the soil was scarified. Finally, the dried up area was control burned and sown with pine.

A bottle of wet water

“Dampens effectively and is equivalent to a multiple amount of regular water. This wetting agent, called VV-3, is manufactured by the forest producers own industrial plant, Äänekoski Oy.” One of the most effective tools used in fire fighting, for example in controlled burning, is wet water. Wetting agent is added in the water, reducing the surface tension of the water so that the water is able to effectively penetrate the watered target.

Forest ditch plough

The efficiency of forest drainage was remarkably improved in the mid-1950s when they started using robust ditch ploughs. The forest ditch plough Lokomo was used in digging forest and field ditches with the help of Allis-Chalmers 16 crawler tractor. The forest ditch plough has been used to plough ditches for a water pipeline across the bay, as deep as 5 -6 meters, by the order of the town of Kristiina.