FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 223 



The inhabitants, for the most part, seem good, solid people who till 

 their farms in summer and cut and haul cord wood in the winter. There 

 is the usual shiftless element who live from hand to mouth, working when 

 they feel disposed, but, from all appearances, this element is small, though 

 the number of Italians living around Highland Falls and Bog Meadow 

 Pond are a menace from the standpoint of fire risk. 



Industries. Concerning industries, Highland Falls is purely a resi- 

 dential town, and Fort Montgomery the same. 



The Storm King Stone Company, situated below Cornwall, and em- 

 ploying fifty to sixty men, quarries a small amount of gneiss. The Forest 

 of Deane mines have a daily output of about 300 tons of ore of good quality. 

 4 By all odds the most important industry is, and has been for generations 

 the cord wood business. 



Markets. According to the figures furnished by an authority on brick 

 manufacture there is turned out annually about 600,000,000 brick in the 

 region from Newburgh to Haverstraw, of which 40 per cent, is said to be 

 burned with wood, or 240,000,000. On the basis of 6,000 brick to one cord 

 of wood the theoretical cordwood consumption for this region would be 

 in the neighborhood of 40,000 cords per year. From the present appear- 

 ance of the wood market this estimate would seem three or four times too 

 high. 



A large landowner in the region had a five-year's contract with a brick 

 manufacturer for 7,000 cords per annum, but his superintendent reports 

 that the buyer is no longer calling for shipments. In addition there are 

 several hundred cords of wood on the dock and in the woods going begging 

 at $4 per cord. The total production for this region is estimated at 10,000 

 cords per annum. 



The present price of cordwood ranges from $3.50 F. O. B. cars at 

 Arden to $4.25 F. O. B. dock at Fort Montgomery, while in 1907, before 

 the business depression, the average price was about $5 per cord. 



The cost of the various processes in the marketing of cordwood is as 

 follows : 



