270 REPORT OF THE 



business for lack of bark. The tannery at Prattsville, owned by Zadoc Pratt, was 

 one of the largest in the State. Here, 60,000 sides of sole leather were tanned and 

 6,000 cords of bark consumed annually for twenty-five years. Over six million feet 

 of hemlock was cut each year to furnish bark for this tannery alone, the greater 

 part of the logs being left to rot after they were peeled. 



The principal men in the tannery business in the Catskill region were : Col. H. 

 D. Snyder, Phoenicia ; James Simpson, Phoenicia ; Pratt & Sampson, Shandaken, 

 and Zadoc Pratt, Prattsville. In 1865, according to the State census, there were 

 820 tanneries in New York; to-day there are not a dozen all told. 



?\etl)ods of L«iinl)ering. 



The system employed at present in logging and lumbering is substantially 

 the same as that used by the pioneers ; it is based on the methods which evolved 

 from the trials, failures, successes, and general experience incidental to the early 

 years of this industry. Of course, improvements have been made in tools and 

 mechanical appliances ; and the men are better housed, fed and paid. But the 

 general principles on which the business is conducted to-day remain the same, and 

 so some information as to the details of the work at the present time may give 

 some idea of how it was carried on a century or more ago.* 



When the lumberman, landowner, or sawmill man, as the case may be, decides 

 to lumber some certain tract, he lets a contract to cut the logs of a particular 

 species and deliver them on the banks of the stream or lake, whence they are to 

 be floated to the mill. This is called letting a log job, and the man who con- 

 tracts to do the work is called a jobber. In some places the contract is let by 

 the thousand feet ; but in the Adirondacks it generally calls for so many thousand 

 standards or markets. The agreement is written out in duplicate and signed by 

 both parties. Having let the contract, the principal generally goes to some 

 bank, where, by getting his notes discounted, provision is made for meeting the 

 expenses of the business and making the advances in cash which the jobber is very 

 apt to ask for. 



The jobber commences operations by the erection of his logging camps, which 

 are located on the tract and as near as possible to the timber which is to be cut. 

 The buildings or " camps " are made of logs, the cracks being well " chinked " with 



* A good description of life in the lumber camps as it existed many years ago may be found in the 

 interesting volume, Forest Life and Forest Trees, by John S. Springer. 1856. New York, Harper & 

 Brothers. 



