278 REPORT OF THE 



that further damage was inflicted by winds and ice storms. The river drives which 

 were composed formerly of fair sized logs were mixed thickly with slender butts ; 

 and on some streams where pulpwood only was running the drives were made up of 

 four-foot lengths entirely. 



The methods employed in a job for cutting pulp timber differ somewhat from 

 those used in lumbering or getting out logs for sawmills. Very small trees as well 

 as the large ones are cut, and when down are sawed into short lengths only four feet 

 long, making the work of skidding, hauling, and river driving much easier. At first 

 only the small trees were cut for pulpwood, the large timber being reserved for the 

 sawmills and cut into logs of the usual length. But as the demand for woodpulp 

 increased, the stumpage became more valuable for that purpose; ail the spruce 

 timber, both large and small, was cut. The largest spruce tree in the Adirondacks 

 so far as known (41 inches in diameter on the stump) was cut for pulpwood, the 

 shaft having being sawed into 22 short logs, each four feet long. 



On some of the pulp jobs the timber is peeled in the woods before shipment, 

 in order to save freight. The bark has no commercial value and is left in the 

 woods where the peeling or " rossing " is done, the mass of dry bark strippings, 

 which covers the ground thickly in places, increasing greatly the danger from fire. 

 Much of the pulp timber in the Adirondacks is hauled direct to some railway 

 station, and from there shipped to the mills, as under present market prices it will 

 bear transportation a long distance. In other places the short pulp logs are driven 

 down some stream and thence into a lake or pond near a railroad, where, by means 

 of jack-works or conveyers, the sticks are lifted from the water and loaded on 

 cars. In other localities a long haul by teams is avoided by the construction 

 of water slides or wooden troughs, several miles in length, through which a shallow 

 stream of water carries the sticks to the railroad, or to some river whence they 

 are driven to the pulp mills, in the same manner as in a log drive. 



In the vicinity of Benson Mines, St. Lawrence County, there is a water slide 

 three miles long for conveying pulpwood to the railroad. This trough is 24 inches 

 wide at the top and 10 at the bottom, with a depth of 20 inches. It is capable of 

 moving 60 cords per hour. The company operating this slide had at one time a 

 pile of pulpwood 1,000 ft. long, 26 ft. high, and 40 ft. wide, all of which had been 

 transported from the woods to the railroad by this novel method. They had, also, 

 an additional trough or slide in which sawed lumber was transported from the mill 

 to the railroad by the same method. The J. & J. Rogers Pulp Company, of Ausable 

 Forks, Essex County, N. Y., have on one of their jobs a water slide seven and one- 

 half miles long, by which their pulp stock is carried to the Ausable River, and from 

 there driven to their mills. 



