A cheap axe is poor economy.  The brightest paint and the gaudiest labels do not always mean the best steel.  Your friend the woodchopper will tell you what kind to buy in your neighbourhood.  The handle should be straight-grained hickory and before buying it you will run your eye along it to see that the helve is not warped or twisted and that there are no knots or bad places in it.  The hang of an axe is the way the handle or helve is fitted to the head.  An expert woodchopper is rarely satisfied with the heft of an axe as it comes from the store.  He prefers to hang his own.  In fact, most woodchoppers prefer to make their own axe handles.

You will need a stone to keep a keen edge on the axe.  No one can do good work with a dull blade, and an edge that has been nicked by chopping into the ground or hitting a stone is absolutely inexcusable.

To chop a tree, first be sure that the owner is willing to have it chopped.  Then decide in which direction you wish it to fall.  This will be determined by the kind of ground, closeness of other trees, and the presence of brush or undergrowth.  When a tree has fallen the woodchopper’s work has only begun.  He must chop off the branches, cut and split the main trunk, and either make sawlogs or cordwood lengths.  Hence the importance of obtaining a good lie for the tree.

Before beginning to chop the tree, cut away all the brush, vines, and undergrowth around its butt as far as you will swing the axe.  This is very important as many of the accidents with an axe result from neglect of this precaution.  As we swing the axe it may catch on a bush or branch over our head, which causes a glancing blow and a possible accident.  Be careful not to dull the axe in cutting brush.  You can often do more damage to its edge with undergrowth no thicker than one’s finger than in chopping a tree a foot through.  If the brush is very light, it will often be better to use your jack-knife.

In cutting a tree, first make two nicks or notches in the bark on the side to which you wish it to fall and as far apart as half the diameter of the tree.  Then begin to swing the axe slowly and without trying to bury its head at every blow and prying it loose again, but with regular strokes first across the grain at the bottom and then in a slanting direction at the top.  The size of the chips you make will be a measure of your degree of skill.  Hold the handle rather loosely and keep your eye on the place you wish to hit and not on the axe.  Do not work around the tree or girdle it but keep right at the notch you are making until it is half way through the tree.  Do not shift your feet at every blow or rise up on your toes.  This would tire even an old woodchopper in a short time.  See that you do not set yourself too fast a pace at first.  A beginner always starts with too small a notch.  See to it that yours is wide enough in the start.

[Illustration:  The right way to chop a tree—­make two notches on opposite sides]