The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-01-12
Michigan Letter.
A Busy Place in a Busy State.

EAST SAGINAW, Michigan, Dec. 80, 1881.
This town is probably the busiest of all the
Michigan centres of trade. It's great industries
are lumber and salt, and these are largely, II
not mostly, in the hands Of Maine men, who
came out here when the pine forests of our
State began to fail, and put their capital and
enterprise into the vast untouched pine forests
of this wonderful State. The numbering inter
ests of Saginaw and of many other localities in
Michigan have great advantage over tSe
same interest in any other State
Anywhere beside the sawmills we'll sunk
to depth of 1900 to 1900 feet will yield an in
exhaustible supply of water saturated with the
purest salt. Salt works are cheaply construct
ed, and the brine is evaporated by the exhaust
steam of the engines Of the saw mills, so that
the process which costs so much for fuel in
other salt making localities costs nothing here,
and the saw mills add to the direct returns of
their own business handsome profit from
their salt works, which is q clear gain over and
above the profits of saw mills elsewhere.
The Michigan salt makers are little hard
on their Syracuse brethren-looked at from the
Syracuse standpoint. They put down the
price. which they can very well afford to do,
so that the Syracuse works cannot compete, ex-
cept at loss, when the latter stop work. I'M
mediately the Michigan saltmakers put up the
price to point at which the Syracuse people
could work at a handsome profit, but they do
not start up their works, because the Michigan
people would Immediately drop their price, so
they are compelled to look on while the latter
monopolize the trade.
The saw mills of Saginaw are on vast
scale, and one them, they say, is the largest
and best in the world. / have seen none Of
them except at distance, but have looked
wonderingly upon the enormous masses OF
manufactured lumber, stacked up IN great
piles which are spread out over great extent
of land, ready for water conveyance on the
river and for the rails which run along in ev-
cry direction to the mills
Black walnut is sent off from this town in
great quantities, and the people are now tax
ing measures to establish here the manufac-
ture of furniture, which they intend shall be
ON q larger scale than that of Grand Rapids, IN
which case this State will produce more than
two-ffths of the entire furniture manufacture
of the United Statesl l was surprised to learn
that fresh copper mines are occasionally dis
covered here, all of which are OF tue same gem
eral character, namely, that the metal exists
in its pure state. which renders it difficult to
work. It must be cut out with cold ehisels, SO
that such mines are not SO profitable TO the
operators as if the copper were mixed with
rock that could be worked with the drill and
gunpowder.
/ see by a geological map Of Michigan that
the coal fields underlie vast extent of terrific
ry, SO as TO be practically inexhaustible. The
future of Michigan is therefore assured, as
great manufacturing State, If the people. should
choose to turn their attention in that direction,
as they will, when it shall contain ten millions
of inhabitants, and its home markets will abb
sorb the products of a great manufacturing in
dustry. Michigan has the best facilities for
the production of iron to an unlimited extent,
with which to supply homo wants and those OF
the boundless West and Northwest.
Railways in Michigan are now pushed into
all parts of the State and into almost every
neighborhood, opening up the country with an
easy access to market and adordlng the DeSt
facilities for intercommunication among the
people. have been surprised to see how the
passenger trains are crowded, even in remote
DISTRICTS and how the rails are encumbered
with freight trains heavily loaded with lumber,
coming out from the "Pineries" right and left
upon the main lines of rail going to market.
The rolling stock is of the best, and the road
beds and the rails are equal in construction
and Keeping TO the best roads of the East.
But, for all this our Michigan friends are
now having the same pull-baek among the
mill-workers and the woodsmen that we had
in Maine in the old rum time. They spend
their large wages at the rum-shops. The mills
do not run in the Winter, the men going into
the woods cutting trees. When they come out
in the Spring their first care is to buy heavy
pair of boots, stout coat, flannel shirt and
hat, and then the balance of their Winters
wages is deposited with the. saloon keeper
This functionary keeps the only score of the
drinks and of the treats, their frequency and
the number of the drinkers, SO that in few
days the deposit is exhausted-the Winters
wages gone, and the wretched lumberman and
his family are in want
This is the general system. Efforts have
been made, unavailingly, to break it up There
are said to be fifty thousand men in the woods,
all of whom could become good livers in their
families, and independent in circumstances
but for the rum-fend that dogs their steps
through life and makes them poor and keeps
them so. NEAL DOW.