The Savannah morning news., 1901-09-01
WEALTH IN THE ADIRoNDACKs.
The Wilderness Passing Into Private
Possession.


OF late years the private estates Of
the Adirondacks are approaching a ba-
ronial status, and resemble the hunt
ing lodges of the Scotch Highlands per-
haps more than anything else, even on
the other side. New York millionaires
are acquiring more and more of the
great wilderness, and once secured they
hold it pertinaciously. even though they
do not live there. William C. Whitney
has $4,000 acres In Hamilton county.
William Rockefeller, besides his mag
nifcent estate few miles up the Hud-
son, has 10000 acres in Franklin ccun-
ty. DIR. William Seward Webb. who
married one of the Vanderbilts, has
10000 acres in Hamilton county, and
his place Nehasne is one of the finest
in the country. William West Durant
has sc, 900 acres.
All these and many other million
aire holders in the Adirondacks, are in
tensely interested in forest and game
preservation. They go to their places
simply for hunting and fishing, and
make very little other use of them. But
A. A. Low, who has over 10000 acres
at Horseshoe, resides there all the year
around, and he amuses himself by
utilizing the products of the forest on
his place. He has a distillery, at which
he makes raspberry and elderberry
wine, and sugar factory, where he
makes maple sugar. These things he
puts up in fancy packages and sells at
fancy prices. In the spring he has 200
men busy tapping the trees on his own
place, and later in the year he has
Yafalyincr ia horrinc that
fusely through the woods. But as this
does not give him sufficient raw ma
teral, he imports quantities of sap and
berries. His sugar plant is five miles
back in the bush, and he travels to it
by his own railway line, which spreads
all over his land.
At the sugar house he has all the lat
est and costliest evaporating pans and
other apparatus put in at heavy ex-
pense. He sends out a very fancy
product in dainty pound packages, en-
cased in glass, which retails at so cents
a pound. He makes little caramels
wraps them in tinfoil, ties them with
pale blue ribbon and sells them at two
for nickel The scraping he packs In a
tub and sells for 10 cents pound. His
plant does not look much like the old
fashioned sugar house where they used
to boil down the sap from the home
sugar bush, to the vast delight and ex-
element of many boy and girl. who
are the men and women of to-day
But any man or woman who ate the
home made maple sugar in that way in
childhood will look dubious when he
samples Mr. Lows fancy product. 1t Is
white and tasteless for the good maple
flavor has all been refined and evapo-
rated out of it. A caramel made of
white sugar would be about as salts
factory.
Mr.. Low probably never made a
pound sugar that did not cost him a
dollar. So his manufacturing enter
prises are not very profitable CONNER
cially. But, as the country people
round about him say. "Spose he might
as we'll play that way, as any other"
Although he is said to be worth $780,
000, 900, Mr.. Low prefers to live in the
woods, in a plain white house that
looks like the residence of prosperous
farmer or country lawyer. He has a
big, barrack-like boarding house for
his men close by, and he takes his own
meals there, in a private room. He dis
likes the idea of identifying the
place. and the lawns, landscape gar
dens and paved drives which make Ne
hasne, the Webb place a few miles
away, so attractive from an artificial
STANDPOINT are SlTiCliy dDSeHb rum
Horseshoe. The wilderness, without its
hair coInbcd, comes straight up to the
door. Mr. Low, however, keeps a gaso-
line launch upon the beautiful little
Horseshoe lake, instead of the primi-
tive row boat, and he drives thor
oughbred span and smart trap over
the country roads.
There are four or five lovely lakes on
the estate, and while Mr.. Low prefers
Horseshoe, Mrs. Low has taken pos
session of Silver Lake, five miles away,
and carries out her individual notions
in building and entertaining there. Mr..
Low is the brother of Seth Low, and
the scholarly president of Columbia oc-
casionally goes upfor few days fish,
ing. Not a gun has been fired on the
place in the two years since Mr.. Low
bought It, and no one fishes In the
lakes except the owner and his guests.
Not a tree or a shrub has been cut, ex-
cept what was necessary for the erec-
ton of the buildings.
Minnie J. Reynolds.