THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 505 



straggling and sadly ravaged by the ax, fire, and wind. The spruce and pine had been culled out and most of the 

 hemlock had been cut down and barked. Half-burned stumps and logs and gaunt and blackened trunks still 

 standing disfigured the landscape on every side. 



"The species of trees observed embraced all those common in northern woodlands. In one locality black 

 cherry was remarkably abundant. Formerly the saw-mills of Colton cut pine, as there was a larger proportion, 

 of this lumber upon the Racket than is usually found in northern New York ; now they do little busuess in any 

 lumber. 



"As we passed up along the river I saw small squads of 'drivers' stationed in a few places where the character 

 of the river was such that it was liable to become obstructed with logs. By assisting the logs to pass such places 

 great jams are prevented. The main body of the men, however, worked at the rear of the drive, scrambling over 

 the disordered piles of logs which accumulate upon the shore or lodge against the rocks in the midst of the current. 

 With their cant-hooks the men pry and roll the logs into the current, springing about on the pile as the logs roll 

 from under their feet. Not uufrequently logs are left by the subsiding waters among the rocks at some distance 

 from the main channel of the river. Files of men on each side then seize them with their cant-hooks and, splashing 

 through the shallow water, bring them by main force into the channel. Sometimes logs become fastened among 

 the rocks where the current is so swift that they cannot be reached by a boat or in any other way. Then hooks 

 attached to ropes are thrown out from the shore; the logs are grappled and thus hauled off into the current. The 

 drivers work Sundays and week days, fair weather or foul; their occupation is full of peril, and men are lost every 

 year. Such are usually, as a driver assured me, 'men who do not know where it is safe to go.' But sometimes 

 the most careful men become mixed with the rolling logs or seized by the current of the waterfalls and are swept away. 

 "Franklin county contains 995,279 acres, and 347,500 acres are still believed to be timbered. The timbered 

 portion lies in the south end of the county, and because it is not watered through much of its area by streams of 

 sufficient size for driving out the logs, much of the timber is inaccessible, or rather, the prices of lumber do not 

 yet warrant hauling the logs long distances. The country across the line of the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain 

 railroad appears exhausted of its spruce and hemlock. Some tracts of hard wood are still standing, but the poplars, 

 whose young growth often conceals the stumps and prostrate trunks of dead hemlocks, really seem in many places 

 the most common species. But little timber land remains in Clinton county and, until the present season, lumbering 

 on the Saranac had been for several years nearly suspended. This year, however, a company was cutting a few 

 million feet of lumber drawn from the woods of Essex and Franklin counties. The lumber of the eastern side of 

 the Adirondack wilderness mostly comes out by the way of the Saranac and the Hudson rivers. The mountain 

 sides about lake George are being denuded of their spruce, which is sawed in the vicinity of Ticonderoga, and here, 

 as elsewhere, fires follow the ax in their usual fashion." 



The forests of the Adirondack region have suffered severe loss at different times, particularly in 1878, by 

 the sudden death of great blocks of black spruce. Mr. Pringle carefally studied the extent of this destruction 

 and the causes which produced it. In regard to these, great diversity of opinion exists among woodsim-n and 

 others familiar with the Adirondack forests. It has been generally supposed that the trees were killed by an 

 unusually severe summer drought, or by the attacks of a boring insect working under the bark; but the testimony 

 gathered by Mr. Pringle points to other causes of destruction. The spruce occupies dry mountain slopes and 

 ridges and deep wet swamps never greatly affected by drought. It is noticed that as many trees have died in 

 the swamps as upon the dry slopes. It is evidently not drought, then, which has caused them to perish. The 

 opinion, too, is firmly held by the most intelligent observers that insects do not attack the trees until they are 

 dead or nearly dead, and are never found in vigorous living specimens. 



The black spruce is not a long-lived tree, and this dying out may indicate that the old trees of this forest, probably 

 all of nearly the same age, had so nearly reached the limits of their natural existence as to be unable to withstand 

 some unusual or severe climatic state, such as a period of intense winter cold or late spring frost. The following 

 extracts from Mr. Pringle's report will indicate the opinions of those best able perhaps to form an opinion upon 

 this subject : 



" Mr. Mark Moody, residing at the foot of Tupper lake, a hunter and woodsman who has passed his life in the 

 forest, testifies as follows : ' The spruce died fearfully in his vicinity about two years ago ; he tried to learn the cause. 

 Sixteen years ago the spruce had died out much in the same way as it has been doing lately. It is the older trees 

 which die. They seem to die by crops, successively. Under the large trees were always springing up small trees 

 to take the places of those that perish. There seems to be a narrower limit to the life of the spruce than to that 

 of any other species. Other trees do not die in the same manner, by crops. The spruce does not seem to enjoy the 

 same green old age, long drawn out, as other trees do, but when it has reached its full growth seems to relinquish 

 its vitality without any apparent or sufficient cause, and before giving evidence of decay or any diminution of 

 vigor.' 



"Mr. Wardner, of Bloomingdale, Essex county, an old hunter, woodsman, and guide, testified as follows: 'The 

 spruce timber on this side of the forest has failed clear through to its northern borders, in the same manner and 

 during the same seasons as in other portions of the region.' Mr. Wardner first noticed the leaves falling and 

 covering the ground in 1878; the destruction was continued through 1879, but during the past season he had met 



