forest, fish and game commission. 24 1 



"For Sale, 

 the one half of a 



SAW MILL. 



With a convenient place for building, lying in the town of Rochester.* By the 

 Mill is an inexhaustible quantity of PINE WOOD. — And also, 



A Stout, Healthy, Active 

 NEGRO WENCH. 

 Any person inclined to purchase, may know the particulars by applying to 

 JOHN SCHOONMAKER, JUN. " 



The advertiser and his fellow lumbermen of that region have long since gone 

 their way, and with them their "inexhaustible quantity of pine wood." 



With the white pine there was in many localities an admixture of Norway 

 pine ; and in Steuben county, or along the southern border, considerable yellow 

 pine {P. echinata, Mill.). 



The white pine, being the most valuable of all the forest trees, was taken first, 

 and, until 1850 or thereabouts, the work of the lumbermen was confined almost 

 exclusively to this species. 



Next, in importance, the hemlock requires some mention, as it, also, was 

 distributed over the whole territory. Though of inferior dimensions and quality 

 throughout the Adirondack region, yet in the southern tier of counties, and along 

 the Catskill range, it attained a size and strength that compared favorably with 

 the best Pennsylvania hemlock. f For a long period, however, it had no value 

 except for its bark, which was necessary in the tanning business. Trees were 

 cut, peeled, and the bark hauled to the tanneries while the trunks were left in 

 the woods to decay as waste or useless material. This was largely the case within 

 twenty-five years, especially in Pennsylvania, the demand for bark being greatly 

 in excess of the demand for hemlock lumber. Not until there was a scarcity of 

 pine did the lumbermen find it profitable to take hemlock logs to the mills ; and, 

 then, for many years the margin of profit was very small. 



*Town of Rochester, Ulster County; not the city of that name. 



fin the town of Colchester, Delaware County, there is a hemlock tree over two feet in diameter 

 standing on the line between divisions 63 and 64 upon the north side of the hill opposite the school- 

 house in the Wilson Hollow. While it was a young tree about six inches through it had been marked 

 by some sharp instrument, probably an Indian weapon, in 1535. Two hundred and fifty-three con- 

 centric rings of annual growth over this mark is a blaze made by James Cockburn in 1788; and over 

 another twenty-eight annual rings is a blaze made by Christopher Tappen in i8i6. 

 16 



