502 THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the white, red, and black oaks are conspicuous among the pines, and in the colder and wetter sands the white birch 

 is common. But through all this region the trees are all of second growth, and lumber for building purposes is 

 largely imported. 



" The forest on the upper waters of the Au Sable and of the divide between this river and the Saranac is 

 principally devoted to supplying fuel to numerous iron furnaces. The best butt logs only of spruce are sorted out 

 and sent to the saw-mills as the forests are mowed down ; the hemlock bark is removed for the tanneries, but 

 everything else, young pine, spruce, and poplar, fall clean with maple and birch. Here and there, even far up on 

 the hillsides, are seen the charcoal kilns, and around and about them, quite to the crest of the foot-hills of the 

 Adirondacks, the woods are cut down in great swaths to feed them. Lands once cut over are left to grow up to 

 timber again, though fires originating in the dead brushwood and consuming the sun-dried vegetable mold on the 

 surface of the soil generally interfere with any new growth of trees. 



"Little Tapper lake is situated in the heart of the Adirondack wilderness, and is surrounded by some of the 

 most valuable timber lands to be found in all this region. The woods about the lake have never heard the lumberman's 

 ax. The stream which connects it with Tupper lake, by way of Bound pond, is not adapted to driving, and before 

 lumber could be brought down it would be necessary to clear out the stream by blasting away much rock and building 

 a dam with flood-gates at the foot of Bound pond. The shores of this beautiful lake present a marked contrast to 

 those of any I have as yet visited. On other shores and river banks I had seen scattering pines, but on all the points 

 and bluffs of this lake throughout its entire circuit, and even following the ravines far back in the hills, are great 

 groves and belts of white pine with straight and clean shafts towering high above all other trees, unless isexcepted 

 the red pine, of which a few specimens are mingled with them on the gravelly banks of the lake, vying with the 

 white pines in height and beauty of trunk. At certain places on the shores of this lake, and particularly along 

 the sluggish streams connecting it with Bound pond below, are considerable swamps occupied chiefly by larch. 

 It is pleasing to observe and to learn from guides that this lake region of the Adirondack woods has suffered but 

 little from forest fires. It is only limited areas here and there on the shores of the lakes and ponds or along the 

 rivers that have been devastated by fires originally started in hunters' camps. Seldom do these fires spread far 

 back from the water, a fact which is to be attributed, it is believed, to the wet and mossy condition of these woods; 

 yet, when they have been lumbered, as is the case lower down the Backet river, and a considerable proportion of the 

 trees have been removed so as to expose the brushwood, etc., to the drying influences of the sun, much the usual 

 liability to tire exists here. 



" It is safe to assume that 2,500 square miles fairly represent the area of the virgin forests of the Adirondack 

 wilderness. This area will average 3,000 feet of spruce (board measure) per acre, or about five billion feet in the 

 aggregate. The amount of hemlock, variously estimated from 300 to 10,000 feet per acre, will cut at least 2,000 

 feet per acre, or 3,000,000,000 feet in the aggregate, or its equivalent; when the bark alone is considered, 3,000,000 

 cords of bark. The pine hardly, if at all, exceeds 200 feet per acre, or 320,000,000 feet in all. The hard wood 

 growing over this entire region will fairly average 40 cords per acre, or 64,000,000 cords. 



"Glens Falls is the great sawing center for the lumber cut upon the upper Hudson. This business here has 

 passed the point of maximum prosperity and begun to decline; not that there was any necessity for a diminution 

 of the yearly crop of logs from this field, if the forest could be protected from devastating fires. The lumberman 

 leaves standing, as far as possible, the spruce trees too small for the ax, and these, the overshadowing growth being 

 removed, grow with increased vigor, so that good crops of timber could be harvested from the soil every thirty or 

 forty years, were it not that over at least one-half of the area lumbered fire follows the ax, burning deep into the 

 woody soil and inducing an entire change of tree covering. Poplars, birches, and bird cherries, if anything, succeed 

 the spruces and firs. From this cause alone the lumbering industry of the region must dwindle. A large area utterly 

 unadapted to agriculture is being made desolate and nearly valueless, and its streams, the feeders of the water 

 privileges and canals below, become every year more and more slender and fitful. These fires are largely set by 

 reckless sportsmen and hunters, with whom this region peculiarly abounds in summer. They are careless in their 

 smoking; they neglect to watch and properly extinguish the fires lighted for camp and cooking purposes, and 

 sometimes they even delight to set fire to the dry brushwood of lumbered laud in lawless sport. Again, to some 

 extent, a class of petty pioneers follow the lumberman, obtaining for a trifling sum a title to a little land, or, squatting 

 without rights, set fire to the dry brushwood left by the lumberers, and allow the fire to spread at will, devastating 

 thousands of dollars' worth of property for the mere convenience of saving themselves the trouble of burning 

 boundary strips around their fields, which might not cost them labor to the amount of $10. The laws of New York 

 in respect to the setting of forest fires are totally inadequate to protect the forests. The opinion prevails in the 

 forest region of northern New York that, a growth of trees removed is followed by a similar growth, the result of 

 young seedling trees left in the soil, except in the case of pine. ' Pine once cleared off is never renewed,' was the 

 invariable remark. This of course presumes that fire is kept out of the clearing, for after a fire has consumed 

 the brushwood and much of the 'duff' or vegetable mold, and with this all the young seedling trees, and even 

 the seeds of trees that may be in the soil, an entirely different growth from the hemlock and spruce springs up. 

 Baspberry bushes are the first to appear, the seeds of which are dropped by birds flying over the clearing. Bird 

 cherries generally appear among the first trees, the seeds being dropped everywhere in a new country by birds; 



