FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 29 



As this was State work the men labored only eight hours a day in accordance 

 with the provision of the Labor Law regulating the hours on public works. The 

 laborers received a dollar and fifty cents per day, while the foremen, of whom 

 there were three, were paid two dollars per day. Ordinarily men cannot be 

 obtained in the Adirondacks at these wages, but the work was done at a season 

 of the year when there is little doing in the lumber regions or on the farms, a fact 

 which should be remembered when discussing the relative advantages of spring 

 and fall planting. 



On favorable ground, when free from interruption by bad weather or other 

 causes, two men (a mattock man and his planter) set out about 1,600 plants in 

 eight hours, or one day's work. But this average was not sustained during the 

 entire course of the planting. It required 747 days' labor — including foremen, 

 laborers and water boys — to set out the 500,000 seedlings provided, or 669 plants 

 per day for each man and boy on the job. The total expense of the plantation, 

 including purchase price of seedlings, cartage on same and labor, amounted to 

 $2,496.22, or less than half a cent per plant. 



The large gang of laborers employed obtained board and lodging at houses in 

 the immediate vicinity of Lake Clear Junction, or near Lots 105 and 106, the first 

 ones planted. But when the work extended to the lots farther south it was found 

 that too much time was consumed in walking to the ground each morning and 

 in returning at night. Forester Knechtel then made a written application to 

 Mr. F. A. Harrington, Division Superintendent of the New York Central Railroad, 

 asking for transportation for the men to and from their work, whereupon 

 Mr. Harrington kindly ordered that free transportation be furnished on the 

 railroad, and that the passenger trains on the Saranac Lake Branch should stop 

 morning and evening to let off or take on the planting gang at whatever points on 

 the line might be most convenient for the work. 



The seedlings having been set out at intervals of six feet, there were 1,210 

 plants per acre, and hence the ground actually occupied by the half million 

 seedlings includes only 414 acres. But owing to frequent obstructions, swampy 

 places and thickets of sapling trees, the boundaries of the territory planted embrace 

 nearly 700 acres. 



The thick growth of ferns, which covered the ground and could not be removed 

 except at too great an expense, caused some apprehension through fear that it 

 might choke the young plants or seriously retard their growth. But nothing of 

 the kind occurred, and the little trees grew thriftily among the overshadowing 

 brakes, which, in fact, proved valuable as a protection against the heat of the sun 

 in July and August. 



