326 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



inferior to the white pine, smaller and harder to manufacture. In fact, there is not 

 much Norway pine in our Northern forest. Although it is apt to be standing in 

 groups it appears only at widely separated intervals. 



The production of hemlock in Northern New York has decreased steadily in the 

 last eight years from 94,145,695 feet in 1890, to 42,611,412 feet in 1898. The 

 Adirondack hemlock is inferior in size and quality to that in Pennsylvania, and owing 

 to the favorable freight rates of the latter our Northern hemlock could not be handled 

 with profit, unless it stood near enough to the tanneries along the border to market 

 the bark. The price of hemlock lumber is now advancing rapidly. The pulp mills 

 are using a larger admixture of this wood, which may result also in an increased 

 cutting. But a large proportion of the hemlock lands have passed into the possession 

 of the State, these forests having been abandoned by their owners after the spruce and 

 pine had been removed, and allowed to revert for unpaid taxes. Large areas have 

 also been sold to the State at a low price, lands on which the hemlock timber is still 

 standing. 



The hardwood production has steadily increased during the last eight years, from 

 5,835,844 feet, in 1890, to 17,883,873 feet in 1898. Along the entire border of the 

 Great Forest there are small mills at frequent intervals, which saw hardwood mostly — 

 many of them nothing else. Some of these mills formerly cut only spruce, pine or 

 hemlock. But when the accessible timber of these species was exhausted, the mill 

 owners had to either abandon their plant or commence sawing hardwood. They soon 

 found a market for the latter, and now some of these operators are sawing more 

 lumber, and making more money, than when they were in the spruce and hemlock 

 business. 



The hardwood production is composed almost wholly of birch, maple and beech, 

 these species comprising the principal hardwood growth of the Adirondack forests. 

 Small quantities of black cherry, ash, and elm are cut in some of the mills. Bass- 

 wood, which cannot properly be called a hardwood, is sawed in considerable amount; 

 and in the foregoing tabulation of the annual forest output this species is included, for 

 convenience, with the hardwoods. No oak, chestnut, or hickory is cut, for these 

 species do not grow on the Adirondack plateau. 



Of the hardwoods, more birch is sawed than any other species. It is the yellow or 

 gray birch {betula lutea), although it is known generally among the lumbermen and 

 woodsmen as " red birch," a term used on account of the reddish tinge of the wood. 

 It is sometimes called black birch, owing to the darker shade of the wood found in 

 some of the trees. But the red, or river birch of the botanists {betula nigra), and the 

 real black birch (betula lento) is not found in our Adirondack woods, although I have 

 noticed a few specimens of the latter in the vicinity of Keene Valley. But the 



