LUMBER BUSINESS OF THE UPPER HUDSON. 439 



of labor and material. As the outgrowth of our cities and the demands 

 of commerce increased, mechanical inventions multiplied, the economies 

 of manufacture were studied, extensive mills with all the adjuncts of 

 machinery were constructed at central points, and logs were drawn or 

 floated to the mills from the ponds above. As the cost of production 

 increased, and material receded, combinations of operators were organ- 

 ized, river-driving became systematized, and manufacturing at the great 

 centers of the lumbering business steadily increased. 



This mode of operating necessitated the accumulation, at seasons of 

 high water, of large quantities of logs for the year's supply. At this 

 day the points of supply and consumption are so remote that one and 

 often part of two years' stocks, representing from three-fourths to a 

 million of dollars, are constantly alloat. A system of booms was de- 

 vised in order to retain and convey the logs to the points where they 

 were to be sawed. But it was found that enormous losses frequently 

 resulted from freshets. Once in four or five years, sometimes oftener, 

 a tremendous spring-flood would occur, which no amount of i)recaution 

 or care could (or did) prevent from bearing off on its resistless, turbulent, 

 and turbid waters the gathered harvest of an entire year's work in the 

 woods, leaving the mills idle for the want of stock; and the employes 

 thus thrown out of their regular work were forced to seek in other fields 

 ot industry a scanty and precarious employment. 



To remedy these evils, "The Hudson Eiver Boom Association" was 

 formed about the year 1849. This combination included all the mill- 

 owners below the Great Falls on the Hudson River (Jessup's Falls), 

 together with many log-owners, who had their lumber made at their 

 mills. At great expense a substantial series of piers and system of 

 chained booms was constructed at the foot of the Big Bend, about 

 four miles above Glens Falls, which, strengthened and improved from 

 time to time, has never failed to accomplish the work for which it was 

 designed, and to withstand the pressure of the heaviest freshets. In 

 Older to equalize the annual expenses attendant upon the management 

 of the boom, and the reception and discharge of the logs, a record of the 

 number delivered and sworn to by each contributor to the drive had to 

 be kept by the Boom Association, and thus we are enabled, through the 

 courtesy of its secretary, Mr. William McEachron, of Glens Falls, to 

 l^resent in a tabulated form the number of logs received for the last 

 twenty-five years, with the exception of two years, which are estimated. 

 It is premised that each unit of the count here given is a marlietlog^ 

 viz, a log thirteen feet long and nineteen inches in diameter in the clenr 

 at the smaller end. Such a log, calculated as a cylinder, contains 25.6 

 cubic feet, and practically represents about 200 feet of sawed lumber, 

 board-measure. As the average of stock runs in the boom, including 

 logs of all sorts, each market-log will represent two pieces by count, 

 and the actual number of logs delivered to the various drives is obtained 

 by multiplying the numbers of the table by 2. 



The amount of lumber carried to market by rail is very inconsiderable 

 and scarcely worth mentioning. By estimates, it would not exceed 1 

 per cent., so that the following table from canal statistics will represent 

 the principal production that reached the great markets. The number 

 of market-logs manufactured at points above the Big Boom is roughly 

 estimated at 25,000, representing 5,000,000 feet of lumber per annum. 



