824 [Assembly 



cedar of this territory peculiarly adapts them to these delicate 

 fabrics, and I regard this expermieiitas the incipient movement to 

 an important and lucrative branch of business. 



Starch. — The manufacture of this article from potatoes, has re- 

 cently been introduced into Essex county, and promises to affect 

 very favorably its agricultural interests. With a certain demand, 

 even at low prices, the potato will be very extensively cultivated. 

 A large and expensive factory was erected by Messrs. Page, Tho- 

 mas & Taylor, in the autumn of 1852, upon the Au Sable river, 

 about two miles below Keeseville. The ibllowing remarks ex- 

 plain this business : " We shall use," a correspondent states, 

 ^« about 30,000 bushels of potatoes annually. The amount of 

 starch produced from a bushel will vary from seven to ten pounds. 

 The potatoes yield the most starch when just taken from the 

 ground. We have four cents for our starch through the present 

 season. It is a fluctuating article, however, being sometimes lower 

 than this price, and often much higher."* 



Paper. — The paper mill, of which Mr. Parks is the proprietor, 

 stands upon the same floom with the starch factory, and is doing 

 a large and profitable business in the coarser fiibrics. 



Black Lead. — The manufacture of the graphite or black lead, 

 has not acquired that importance which we might infer from the 

 *^ast deposits in the county, of the raw material, and the facility 

 with' which it can be procured. The quantity manufactured at 

 the works of Mr. Arthur at Ticonderoga, in the year 1852, ex-, 

 ceeded 61,000 pounds, and is susceptible of any expansion the de- 

 mand will justify. 



Glass. — In approaching the furnace of Hammond k Co., in 

 SchrooUp I observed the road formed for some distance by a very 

 beautiful material, exhibiting a surface soft and lustrous as argillo 

 work, and glowing in every shade and tint. This substance is 

 the concretion of the slag or cinders of the furnace. When gush- 

 ing from the stack in fusion, it will form and draw out, by a wire 

 thrust into the boiling mass, an attenuated glass thread the en- 

 tire length of the furnace, a distance of sixty feet. The glass pre- 



•G. T. Thomas. 



