344 



KEI'ORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS UF 



inferior to the spruce in quality, and the buyers object if too large an amount is thus 

 put in. This species, known \-ariously as balsam, or fir, or balsam tir (adus balsamra), 

 can be used for woodpulp by the sulphite or chemical mills; but it is not available in 

 the mechanical mills, where the wood is reduced to fibre by grinding, as the resinous 

 matter of the balsam gums up the screens. 



The cut of white pine has varied during the last ten years from 17,000,000 to 

 2 7,000,000 of feet annually. In 1893 it amounted to 27,844,222 feet. The main stock 

 of white pine in our northern forest was remo\'ed many )-ears ago, at a time when the 

 lumbermen cut pine only and no spruce. A few small areas remain untouched, but 

 the greater part of the white pine cut in late )-ears comes from trees that were left at 

 the first cutting or from some scattering second growth. Most of the first growth 

 now remaining is of inferior quality, being shaky or ring-rotten and running largely to 

 culls. The suppl}' of this species is practically exhausted, and the product reported 

 annually is the result of a gleaning process carried on while the operators are cutting 

 the spruce and hemlock on the same tract where this scattered pine remains. 



The amount of hemlock cut annuall)- has steadily decreased from 94,145,695 feet 

 cut in 1S90 to 53,907,595 feet cut in 1896. This decrease is not due to a scarcity of 

 this species so much as an increasing remoteness of the timber. Owing to the large 

 hemlock prt)duct of the Pennsylvania forests the market price is so low that it will not 

 warrant any logging operations except where the trees are easily accessible, or where 

 some tannery within a reasonable haul affords a market for the bark. The nearest 

 timber having been cut, the lumbermen each year are penetrating farther into the 

 interior forest, and the logging operations are farther removed from the tanneries. 

 Although the spruce and pine are cut clean, the hemlock on man)- jobs is left standing 

 in the woods. Hence there is a disproportion in the product of spruce and hemlock 

 which does not exist in the woods, there being a much larger proportion of hemlock 

 in the standing timber than the output of the mills would indicate. 



The hardwood supplied by the Adirondack forests during the last seven years 

 averages 7,614,482 feet per year, the amount varying but slightly each year. As this 

 class of logs cannot be floated down the streams, the consumption is limited to the 

 small areas accessible by a short haul, and which are not too far from a railroad to 

 prevent hauling the sawed lumber. The railroads recently built through the forest 

 will now render large areas of hardwood accessible and at the same time furnish ready 

 transportation for the lumber. There will probably be ;in increase in the annual 

 product of this kind of timber. 



The output of hartlwood as reported here for the last three years is made up 

 mostly of birch and maple, the birch predominating largeh". The latter, which is 

 known in the woods as red or black birch, is the hctiila lutca or \-ellow birch, some- 



