At the time of the American occupation the methods employed in felling trees and converting them into lumber were primitive in the extreme. The small Malay axe, the edge of which is hardly wider than that of a good-sized chisel, was in common use. Once felled, trees were necessarily cut into short lengths, as all logs had to be hauled by carabaos. The logs were ultimately cut into lumber by hand with whip-saws operated, as a rule, by two men each. There was not a modern sawmill in the Philippine Islands. The few mills which existed were of the most antiquated type, and with one or two negligible exceptions were confined to Manila. To-day there are about sixty steam sawmills in operation and orders have been placed for others, some of which will have a capacity of one hundred thousand board feet of lumber per day. The actual investment in logging equipment and sawmills runs into the millions of dollars. Logging was formerly closely restricted to the most valuable species, so situated that they could be rolled into the water or hauled to the beach by carabaos. Large tracts are now being logged with modern machinery under conservative forest methods, and the logging railway and the skidding engine are rapidly coming into use. Three forest reserves, similar in purpose to the national forests of the United States, have been set aside to insure a permanent timber supply in certain regions and to afford permanent protection to streams capable of furnishing irrigation water upon which may depend the prosperity of the inhabitants of neighbouring plains. One hundred and forty-nine communal forests have been created for as many municipalities, in order permanently to provide them with timber and firewood. The interests of the Filipinos themselves have been given first consideration, and the inhabitants of towns for which communal forests have not been set aside may freely cut and gather from any public forest, without license and without payment, all timber of the second and lower groups which they require for domestic use, while gratuitous licenses can be had for first-group timber to be employed in the construction of permanent houses. Within recent years the revenue derived from forest products has steadily increased, in spite of the fact that the government charges have been materially reduced.