ADIRONDACK FOREST MUSINGS 



BY E. A. STERLING 



Y'ES, the East is cut out; the white pine is gone; the 

 ' spruce cut or going. From the East, the South and 

 the Lake States the lumberman must move to the Pa- 

 cific Coast as his mill makes its last run ; at any rate he 

 must choose between the virgin timber of the western 

 field, small local tracts at high stumpage cost, or going 

 out of the lumber business. Proof that this general con- 

 ception of the situation is correct is found in the startling 

 fact that the region within a 500 mile radius of New 

 York City annually consumes some 10 billion feet and 

 produces three; that the wood-using industries of New 

 York State alone import 85 per cent of the lumber con- 



BE.-WER DAM ON WARD'S BROOK, WHICH HAS 

 RAISED THE WATER LEVEL OVER THREE FEET 

 THESE INDUSTRIOUS ANIMALS HAVE INCREASED 

 GREATLY THE PAST FEW YEARS AND THEIR DAMS 

 ARE FLOODING AND KILLING CONSIDERABLE TIM- 

 BER IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 



sumed, Connecticut produces only 15 per cent of its re- 

 quirements, and New England has under 5 per cent of its 

 original forests left. 



This accelerated trend in lumber production towards 

 the West is important to the public and vital to the lumber 

 industry of the East ; yet we find in the Adirondack re- 

 gion of New York State that lumbermen have moved east 

 from Michigan and north from Pennsylvania into fields 

 of plenty. This changes the broad phases not a whit, and 

 these fortunate exceptions, with those previously on the 

 ground who still hold sizable areas of convertible timber, 

 are like rabbits in clover with .markets for every kind 

 and grade of forest product at their door. And with 

 this market they are the ones who can afford to plan 

 continuous production if their holdings are large enough ; 

 to than the cycle of values, based on available supplies, 

 has brought forestry into the status of a commercial as- 

 set rather than a vision. 



So in our consideration of shifting timber supplies and 

 of the exceptional operations which do not change the 

 economic trend, we come to the little lumber-built village 

 of Tupper Lake, New York. In the heart of the Adi- 

 rondacks, founded as a mill town many years ago, existing 

 through the changing years with a prosperous sawmill at 

 its back and now looking forward confidently to at least 

 30 years more as a lumber town, "Tupper" is at least 

 unique among North woods villages. Elsewhere in the 

 Adirondacks the lumber settlements have become tourist 

 resorts or gone to seed, except in the few cases where 

 pulp or paper mills give permanence, but Tupper Lake 

 continues to prosper from its mill and logging operations, 

 with tourists making little impression as they pass to and 

 fro or tarry on the shores of its adjacent lakes and 

 streams. 



The past in this Adirondack center is closely linked 

 with the present in the Santa Clara Company, which 

 for many years has brought its drive down the Raquette 

 and manufactured spruce lumber in a mill at the edge 

 of the village on the shore of Raquette Lake. This mill 

 is still turning out its hundred thousand feet per day dur- 

 ing the summer season, and if the "whine of the saw" 



LOADING HARDWOOD LOGS AT CROSS CLEARING, 

 EIGHT MILES FROM TUPPER LAKE. THE END OF 

 THE FIRST LOGGING ADIRONDACK RAILROAD BUILT 

 TO HAUL HARDWOODS. THESE LOGS WERE PRO- 

 DUCED IN THE DEMONSTRATION CUTTINGS OF THE 

 NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE OF FORESTRY OF COR- 

 NELL AND WERE MANUFACTURED INTO SLACK 

 COOPERAGE. 



is not heard on the village streets as proof of an industry 

 still running strong, it is because this mill runs too quietly 

 and efficiently to have anything to whine about. 



For it is a model of its kind and size, with a wide repu- 



