FISHERIES, GAME AM) FORESTS. 4OI 



Seventh : There is thi well-defined policy of railroads to keep the logs in their respective terri- 

 tories and to discriminate in favor of shipments of manufactured material, because of the 

 return business. 



Eighth: It is a well-established principle of trade that in the transportation of bulky materials 

 where speedy delivery is not requisite, rail cannot compete with water. 



The experience of a disinterested witness, Mr. Kessler, at a time antedating this claim is, that 

 with the most favorable freight rates obtainable, it was at least three and one-half times as expensive 

 to transport the logs by rail as by water. It may be set down as a conservative, safe proposition, that 

 the mere cost oi transportation by rail is three times what the transportation is by water. 



It being established that the expense of car transportation is at least three times as great as that of 

 water transportation, it is necessary to inquire what would be the cost of transporting claimant's timber 

 to market by the natural and ordinary method of floating. 



(i.) Expenst- of marketing hv river. 



HON. MF-LVILLE W. VAN AMBER testified that the average expense, one year with another, 

 of driving Webb's logs, would average from seventy-five cents to $1 a thousand. 



AUGUSTUS KESSLER testified that the average expense of driving his logs from Watson's 

 East Triangle, adjoining claimant's land, down Fish and Alder Creeks into the Beaver River, and 

 from thence down to Carthage, was on the average eighty cents a thousand feet. 



The most favorable evidence given is that given by Mr. Kessler, to the effect that to lumber by rail 

 costs $2. 17 a thousand feet, and eighty cents by water, or that the transportation by rail is $1,373 

 thousand feet more than transportation by water, and to this is to be added forty cents additional for 

 loading on cars, or a difference of $1.77 per thousand. 



Now, assuming, as we will hereafter show, that there are 3,000 feet per acre on the average on 

 claimant's land, and that the whole tract can be lumbered by rail, it would cost $5.31 per acre more 

 to lumber by rail than to lumber by water, or nearly $350,000 on claimant's entire tract. 



Is it any wonder that the claim is large when the State of New York shuts off the most natural, 

 cheapest and ordinary avenue of removing the lumber upon the tract, leaving the only way of 

 removing the lumber by rail at increased expense of $5 . 77 an acre. 



In view of such facts the claim is small ; and had claimant fully realized the magnitude and scope 

 of the damages done at the time the claim was filed, the claim would have been much larger. 



(3.) Marketing mamifacturcd product by rail. 



It is so apparent that it would not be feasible to market the unmanufactured product by rail that 

 the learned Attorney-General made an extensive investigation in the direction of marketing the manu- 

 factured product by rail. 



To do this requires a mill to start with. 



To lumber by water a mill is not necessary. The logs from claimant's land, as we have seen, 

 could be sold in the markets along the Beaver and Black River. In order to ship out the manufac- 

 tured product it is necessary not only to have a mill, but to draw the logs to the mill. The mill can 

 not be drawn to the logs. 



(<;.) Limit t/iat logs can be drawn to a mill luilh profit. 



In this connection the learned Attorney-General evidently was impressed with the idea that the 

 timber from claimant's land could be taken to the Ouderkirk mill at Beaver River station, on the 

 M. & M. Railroad, and there sawed into lumber and then shipped to market by the railroad, which 

 would obviate the damages. 



In investigating this suggestion it is to be borne in mind at the outset that there is a limit to the 

 distance which timber can be profitably hauled, and that this limit is from six to seven miles at the 

 most. The evidence is clear and uncontradicted on the part of all the witnesses that when logs are 

 hauled for a greater distance than six miles there is no profit in the business. There can be so little 

 dispute upon this subject that reference is merely made to the minutes of testimony. 



Under such apian, at the most, considering everything else feasible, which it is not, the soft wood 

 timber within a radius of six or seven miles of Ouderkirk's mill could be taken to that mill. 

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