240 REPORT OF THE 



with which the great Brant Lake Tract abounded." The writer — whose grand- 

 father and father were the pioneer lumbermen of that famous tract — well remem- 

 bers hearing in his boyhood the white pine of that region enthusiastically described 

 as being " clear as a hound's tooth." The meaning of the Indian name Schenec- 

 tady — "the end of the pine plains" — indicates that this species was conspicuous 

 in that region, although it seems there to have been largely admixed with pitch 

 pine. 



We are told that Pine Street in New York City took its name from the " many 

 magnificent pines " that adorned the farm of Jan Jansen Damen.* 



Peter Kalm,+ the Swedish naturalist, who visited Albany in 1749, writes: " The 

 white pine is found abundant here. The greater part of the merchants have 

 extensive estates in the country, and a great deal of wood. If their estates have 

 a little brook, they do not fail to erect a sawmill upon it for sawing boards and 

 planks, with which commodity many yachts go during the summer to New York, 

 having scarce any other lading than boards. They saw a vast quantity of deal 

 from the white pine on this side of Albany, which is exported." 



Michaux f. states that in 1801 " the shores of Lake Champlain appeared to be 

 most abundantly peopled with this species." 



Dr. Torrey, in his Flora of New York — published in 1843 — says: "The white 

 pine is found in most parts of the State," and " our chief extensive forests of 

 this noble and most valuable tree " are " on the headwaters of the Hudson, and on 

 the rivers which empty into the St. Lawrence ; on the Salmon and Black rivers, 

 which empty into Lake Ontario ; on the headwaters of the Delaware and Susque- 

 hannah ; and on the headwaters of the Allegany and Genesee." This distribution 

 includes substantially the entire State except the lowlands, from which the white 

 pine had been taken by the early settlers long before Torrey wrote. 



The Adirondack tourist of to-day can still see in the tall trees at Paul Smith's, 

 or in the noble colonnade along the shores of Forked Lake, further evidence of 

 its widely extended habitat. 



The Catskill region was also rich in white pine, although there was a strong 

 admixture of hemlock on its mountainous slopes. An old number of the Ulster 

 County Gazette contains an advertisement, dated November 13, 1799, which reads 

 as follows : 



* New York Historic Trees. New York Times, May 12, 1901. 



fThe mountain laurel, j^a/wza, so abundant in the Catskills, was discovered b)' this scientist and 

 named after him 



