Page 118

118 
4WOOD WORKING TOOLS 
       The lumbering and wood industry used tools that to us in this 
  plastic and synthetic day and age are alien to our current speech. 
  For example, a "frow" is used in coopering (barrel making): 
 It was 
  a cleaving tool for riving staves, shingles, or clapboards from the 
  balk, billet, or juggle.  It has a sharp edge, wedge-shaped blade, 
  and a handle set in the plane of the blade but at right angles to 
  its length.  It is driven by a mallet. 
       Further explanation is needed for a 
       "balk", a beam, joist or rafter, 
       "billet", a small log or faggot of wood for firing. 
       "Firkin", a wooden container, round in shape as a pail,
for 
  supplies such as sugar, tallow, butter, etc., usually it held one- 
  quarter of a bushel. A wooden cover fitted over the top.    Some had 
  metal or wooden bails, some not. 
       Wood was the fuel used for steam-driven mill, railroad engines, 
  the heating of homes, schools, stores, churches, and places of 
  business. Farmers in clearing their lind were glad to be rid of 
  the surplus wood other than burning it up in the fields to get it 
  off their hands. There was a market for cord wood. 
       So it was that many of the earlier mills, factories and shops, 
  manufactured products in connection with the lumbering industry. 
  However, other products were manufactured here in order to supply 
  the needs of the growing population. The following list continues 
  with more of Omro's business establishments. 
                       6-~