The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-05-23
[COncLMded.l

In this and many other ways the
hemlock lumber trade of Maine has
the advantage of us. They need not
necessarily sell at less price, and 1 do
not think they do as general rule
that is, the quoted prices of hemlock
in Maine are not lower than in Phila-
delphia and Albany. But, by reason
of manufacturing their lumber at tide
water, they can utilize all their slabs
and ordinary wastage, and ''saw to
ORDER" which gives them great adj
vantage over us.
Hemlock lumbermen everywhere
will understand the difference between
one dollar made on each thousand and
fifty cents lost. The one encourages
and builds up trade, the other kills
business and ruins all concerned.
From some personal knowledge of the
hemlock lumber trade, as pursued on
the Delaware river, in the State of
New York, its branches and tribu-
taries, for the past fifty years, l am
free to say that it has been business
involving great labor and no profit,
while the hemlock lumbermen of
Maine have had profitable business,
and always been able to pay the owner
of the land fully fifty cents, and often
as high as two dollars stumpage for
their logs. If the lumbermen of Penn
sylvania are unable to handle with
| fl,o mil IF Of
rotting in the woods it is because the
policy of the State forbids such use of
the streams as will allow them to ham
die this cheap lumber to advantage.
The laws relating to this intrest are
friendly to the rafting of lumber, but it
seems to have been taken for granted
that this mode of forwarding lumber
| is better than to float unsawed timber
to where it can be made available to
better advantage than at present. 1t
! is believed that such preference is the
result of Indifference or want of atten-
ton to the whole subject rather than
to well-formed conviction that there
are no better methods. 1t is with this
conviction that L have invited atten-
ton to the State of Maine method of
numbering, as applicable to our portion
of Pennsylvania.
Hemlock lumber must be sold cheap
that is, it must be offered at low
price, if it is to enter into universal
use by farmers and builders. What
we want to do is, not to study how to
raise the price of manufactured hem
| lock lumber, but, rather, to furnish it
at such low rates as will induce, in the
| first instance, and finally compel, the
| farmers of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky,
and other States bordering on the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers, to build barns
their fields with fences made of hem
| lock pickets and boards, and at a cost
so low thatthey will find it impossible
to get along without securing the ad-
vantages which the farmers in the
older and better cultivated States have
experienced from the use of this cheap
| lumber. For frames and coarse siding
| hemlock is now almost universally
used by those who have access to it.
1t, however, is little known through
the South and West. This lumber
has been PRESENTED to them either at
so high a COST or in such unsightly
garb as to repel all attempts at its
general adoption.
COST OF HEMLoCK LUMBER.
What will be the cost of hemlock
lumber manufactured at or near Pitts
burgh, from logs floated down the AL
leghany and it's tributaries?
Cost of stumpage (per 900 feet..........".S-5 50
Cutting and stocking 90
Driving and booming ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 90
Manufacturing or sawing~.............".....". 200
Cost delivered on fiat boats 90
The question L wish to PROFOUND to
the dealers and consumers of lumber
on all the Western rivers is this: If
you could always depend upon sup
ply of clean, merchantable hemlock
lumber at Pittsburgh at S. per thous-
and, how much more of it could you
consume than you do now? 1 think
the answer would be such as made to
me by a Kentucky farmer within
few months. He said: at would be
god send to the cattle of Indiana
and Kentucky if the farmers could
get cheap lumber and shingles, for in
that case many farmers would house
their stock, whereas now the cattle
stand shivering for three months of
the year in the cold"
L shall be reminded that l have
made no provision for profit in furn-
ishing lumber at five dollars, at Pitts
burgh. My answer is that neither
does our present system furnish any
profit at eight dollars. But in this es-
innate l have made no claim for the
value of what is now wasted, slabs,
etc., from which pickets, lath and
shingles can be made to great advan-
tage; when the product of this refuse
is so near market, it is claimed that
it alone will pay the whole cost of run
ming and booming. 1t must be re-
membered that, with our present inn
proved method of obtainingpower the
sdWdust alone will give all the power
needed for manufacturing, so that,
whether this is done at Pittsburgh or