2 8o REPORT OF THE 



To the amount of sawed lumber should be added 196,568,623 ft. of logs that 

 went to the pulp mills, making the total forest output of Northern New York that 

 year 447,747,247 ft. 



There are several small sawmills in the Catskill counties, with a few others 

 scattered through the western part of the State, their combined product not 

 exceeding sixty million feet. The advocates of forest preservation and protection 

 of our economic resources need no better argument than is contained in the figures 

 showing the great decline in this industry within the last twenty years. 



lyctmber ?\arl^et3 of New ^.or^. 



In addition to the ordinary lumber business connected with forest and sawmill 

 there were in the State of New York great lumber markets or distributing points 

 where the lumber was sold, not only the product of the State but immense ship- 

 ments from Canada and the Northwest as well. The two principal markets were 

 at Albany and Tonawanda. 



Albany was the centre of a great lumber trade sixty years ago, and at one time 

 surpassed all other points in the amount handled and volume of business. In 

 1872 there were forty-three wholesale firms, whose yards were grouped in the 

 "lumber district," and who handled in the aggregate 660,000,000 ft. that year, 

 their total sales amounting to over $15,000,000. O^er 1,500 men were employed 

 on the yards unloading and loading vessels, or in piling lumber, their total annual 

 wages exceeding $600,000. But, owing to increased facilities for making direct, 

 through shipments from the mills to the retailers, combined with unfavorable 

 discriminations in freight rates, the business at Albany has declined so largely that 

 the amount of lumber handled this year will not exceed 200,000,000 ft. The 

 principal points of distribution for white pine are New York City, Long Island, 

 Boston, New England, Newport, Fall River, Nantucket, Hudson River towns. West 

 Indies, South America, Africa, Azores, and Australia. The shipments of spruce 

 are confined mostly to Greater New York, Long Island and Hartford. 



Tonawanda, unlike Albany, is a market in which all the lumber handled comes 

 from outside the State — - from the great pineries of the Northwestern States and 

 Ontario. Still, some mention of it seems pertinent to this history on account of 

 the immense lumber business carried on there. Next to Chicago and New York 

 City it is the greatest lumber market in the United States or Canada. The entire 

 stock received at this port is reshipped by rail or canal to other places, wherein it 

 differs from Chicago and Greater New York, the latter places consuming a large 

 proportion of their lumber receipts within their own limits. 



