FOREST-RESOURCES OF NORTHERN NEW YORK. 



441 



Tons and value of forest products cleared on the Champlain Canal, ^-c— Continued. 



FORT EDWARD. 



Other interests connected with the icilderness of Northern N'eic TorJc. 



The manufacture of iron in Essex and Clinton Counties Las for a long 

 period created a demand for charcoal, which the forest has supplied, in 

 some cases by repeated cuttings. The tributaries of Lake Champlain, 

 and especially the An sable, which drains an extensive region in the in- 

 terior, have been and still are important lumbering regions, the product, 

 after supplying local demand, usually finding a market by the way of 

 the Champlain Canal. A considerable amount of hewn timber has 

 passed from this region down the Saint Lawrence to Quebec. 



The completion of a railroad from Ogdensburgh to Lake Champlain in 

 1850 opened an avenue to market for the northern part of the great 

 wilderness, and brought into use several of the rivers that had their 

 sources in the pine region, and were of suflBcient dze for floating. Ex- 

 tensive lumbering establishments sprang up on the Chazy, Chateaugay, 

 Salmon, Saint Regis, Grass, Eacket, and Oswegatchie Rivers, but of 

 these none will compare with the Eacket in the extent of territory 

 drained and amount of business done. Extensive establishments were 

 formed at Potsdam and other points, and large quantities of manufac- 

 tured goods have been shipped to Boston and other points. The prin- 

 cipal part of the lumber from this region has found its way to market 

 through the Champlain Canal. 



The pine timber of the western borders of the wilderness mostly dis- 

 appeared some twenty years ago, but a very limited supply being now 

 produced. The lumber stations on the lower waters of the Black River 

 have been mostly given up, and operations are now chiefly lioiited to 

 the Beaver, Otter, and Moose Elvers, and the upper waters of the Black 

 River, the products going southward by canal and railroad. The streams 

 flowing southward from the wilderness into the Mohawk, having im- 

 portance with lumbermen, are the East and West Canada Creeks, and 

 especially the latter. 



Pine forests on the upper waters of the Genesee, Canisteo, and Allegheny 

 Rivers in Southicestern New York. 

 An area roughly estimated as fifty miles long by five wide, but very 

 irregular in form, on the upper waters of the Genesee, was originally 

 covered with a heavy growth of white pine. Other extensive tracts 

 occurred around the upper waters of the Allegheny, which found a 

 natural outlet by way of Pittsburgh to southwestern markets, and others 



