Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1901-09-13
WEALTH IN ACKNOWLEDGES
The Wilderness Across the Lake Passing
Into Private Possession.

Into Private Possession.
\Of late years the private estates of the
Adirondacks are approaching a baronial
status, and resemble the hunting lodges
of the Scotch Highlands perhaps more
than anything else, even of the other
side. New York millionares are acuuir-
ing more and more of the great wilder
ness, and once secured they hold it per-
tiniciously, even though they do not live
there. William c. Whitney has $4,000
acres in Hamilton county. William
Rockefeller, besides, his magnificent es-
tate few miles up the HUDSON, has 49,
600 acres in Franklin county. DR.. Will
liam Seward Webb who married one Of
the Vanderbilts, has 10000 acres in Ham
ilton county, and his place at Nehasane is
one of the finest in the country. Will
liam West Durant has $4,000 acres.
All these, and many other millionaire
holders in the Adirondacks, are intensely
Interested in forest and game preserva-
ton. 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, re-
sides there all the year around, and he
amuses himself by utaizing the products
of the forest on his place. He has dis
tillery, at which he makes raspberry and
elder berry wine, and a 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 POO men busy tapping the trees on
his own place, and later in the year he
has them picking berries that grow pro-
fusely through the woods. But as this
does rot give him sufficient raw mater
| ial, 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 latest
and costliest evaporating pans and other
apparatus put in at heavy expense. He
sends out a very fancy product In dainty
pound packages, encased in glass, which
retais at 80 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 scrapings
he packs in tub and sells for ten cents a
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
excitement Of many boy and girl, who
are the men apd women of today. But
any man or woman who ate the home
made maple sugar in that way in child
hood 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 evaporated out
of it. A caramel made of white sugar
would be about as satisfactory.
Mr.. Low probably never made pound
of sugar that did not cost MIN dollar
So his manufacturing enterprises are not
very profitable commercially. But, as
the country people round about him say,
"S'pose he might as well play that way
as any other
Although he is said to he worth Sl0,-
900, 900, Mr.. Low prefers to live in the
woods, in plain white house that looks
like the residence of a prosperous farmer
or country lawyer. He has big, bar
rack-like boarding house for his men
close by, and he takes his own meals
there, in private room. He dislikes the
idea of "beautifying" the place, and the
lawns. landscape gardens and paved
drives which make Nehasane, the Webb
place few miles away, so attractive
from an artificial standpoint, are strictly
absent from Horseshoe. The wilderness.
without its hair combed, comes straight
up to the door. Mr.. Low, however,
keeps gasoline launch upon the beauti-
full little Horseshoe lake, instead of the
primitive rowboat. and he drives a
thoroughbred 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 posses
sion of Silver Lake, five miles away. and
carries out individual notions in building
and entertaining there. Mr.. Low is tine
brother of seth Low, and the scholarly
president of Columbia occasionally goes
up for few days fishing. Not gun
has been fired on the place ir the two
years Mr.. Low bought it, and no one
fishes in the lakes except the owner and
his guests. Not tree or shrub has
been cut, except what was necessary for
the erection of buildings.-Minnie j.
Reynolds ia exchange.