828 



secured for the winter's operations. These expeditious are usually fitted 

 out from one or the other of the three principal towns on the Saginaw 

 river. The work is conducted under the supervision of some one ex- 

 perienced in the business. The companies proceed to the pineries, 20 

 to 60 miles from East Saginaw or Saginaw City, building their shanties 

 and forming "camps" in the immediate vicinity of the timber, usually 

 within a mile or a mile and a half of the bank of one of the rivers. 

 A winter of good sleighing, with snow not too deep, is considered most 

 favorable for their operations. The trees are cut down, sawed up into 

 logs of the suitable length, and drawn to the bank of the river, the 

 owner's name usually branded upon the end of each log. During the 

 spring freshets these logs are rolled into the stream, formed into I'afts, 

 and fastened with ropes suflScient to keep them together. They are then 

 floated down to the mills, conducted into " booms," from which they 

 are drawn into the mills by machinery, and rapidly cut up into the va- 

 rious kinds of lumber. During most of the summer season, fofty to 

 fifty steam engines, some of them large and powerful, are giving the 

 strength of their iron arms to the machinery that severs the solid tim- 

 ber; and from 200 to 300 saws are constantly in motion through the 

 day, and most of them day and night. Workmen in the mills get from 

 |1 to 82 50 per day, (in some instances more,) according to experience 

 and ability. 



There are the present winter 1 1 3 camps on the river and its tributa- 

 ries, which will average 16 men and G teams to a camp. This would 

 give a grand total of 1,808 men and 678 teams employed. The present 

 winter has been very favorable for lumbering, and it is estimated, if the 

 weather continues favorable a few days longer, there will be logs enough 

 cut and "banked" for 100,000,000 feet of lumber. We are informed 

 that the amount now banked daily, will amount to 2,500,000 feet. It 

 will be seen at once that such a body of men and teams require large 

 supplies of provisions, and furnish a home market for the products of 

 the adjacent farming country. 



The 113 camps now in the woods will require, on an average, 14 

 barrels of flour and 12 barrels of pork each during the winter, making 

 in all 1,682 barrels of flour, and 1,356 of pork. Each camp will also 

 require, on an average, 3 bushels of corn or corn meal per day — 225 

 bushels for 75 days — and for the whole 113 camps, a total of 8,475 



