The wind up:

We had to cut down a big hackberry tree in our front yard. The tree
service said they would take the trunk to the saw mill for me. The
trunk was about 8' long and about 22" in diameter. To make a long
story short, they had a lot of trouble pulling it onto their trailer
using a come-along. Some nice guy with a forklift drove down the
street, saw they were having trouble, stopped, and helped them get it
in the trailer. It was a big ordeal.

Then I was reading one of Roy Underhill's books and he showed a picture
of a cart they used to move logs in Colonial Williamsburg. Here's a
similar pictu
http://www2.willard.lib.mi.us/bcphot...n/r20_1180.htm It
has two big wheels at the end of a long beam. On the short end of the
beam, near the wheels, are two hooks that snag the sides of the log.
You put the long beam up in the air, snag the log, then pull the beam
down so it is parallel with the log. Then you chain the log to the
beam. Now, if the log is centered properly, you pick up the front of
the beam and roll the log out of the forest. Genius!

I think the old timers understood finesse much better than I do.

The question:

I'm tired of reading books and magazine articles that just encourage me
to buy one product or another and have all my woodworking problems
solved.

I'm considering cancelling my Fine Woodworking subscription to read old
books instead. Do you all have any suggestions for old books (or books
about old wood technology) that are a good read?

Mark