Evening star., 1909-06-28
More Tonnage Carried Than
by All Other Rivers in Land.
SEASON OF SEVEN MONTHS
Six Million Tons of Brick Shipped
Annually.
ICE CUTTING INDUSTRY
How the Extensive Land Holdings
of Early Times Have Been Broken
Up-Rockefeller Largest Owner.
BY WILLIAM e CI,RTIS.

b1 WILLIAM r.. CJRIlS.
Special Correspondence Of The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald
NEW YORK. June g. 1909.
l do not know a more thoroughly use
full river than the Hudson. The Saugenay
an1 the Columbia, with which it is often
compared for beauty of scenery. prac-
tically have no commerce The Danube.
the Nile, the Irrawaddy. the Amazon. the
Orinoco. the Rio de la Plata. the Ohio,
the Missouri and the Mississippi are all
ing like the traffic. 1 have heard it as
serted that the Hudson carries more ton
mage than all the other rivers in the
United States combined, and more. even
than the Thames, the Seine the Elbe or
the Mersey in comparison to its length.
Probably no other valley in the United
States has so much traffic as that of
the Hudson, where two railroads and a
great river are carrying the produce and
manufacturers of a continent to our
greatest place of export and returning
with the merchandise of New England
and other parts of the north Atlantic
coast, as well as the imports from foreign
lands.
The navigation season on the Hudson
is about the same that on the great
lakes and will average seven months,
during which time about twenty million
tons of freight are transported. mostly
upon lbargeS and canal boats, which go
down and up lashed together like an enor-
nous raft and towed by one or more
powerful tugs.
The largest item in the traffic Is build
ing brick. which are made at many
points along the Hudson from the clay
of which its banks composed The
brick kilns are too many to count some
of them are two miles long and three
or four OF them produce more than
million brick day. Some OF them en-
gether. about 22.OO0 men and boys, most
ly of foreign birth, are engaged in brick
making The total cargQes of brick float
ed down the Hudson during the year are
about 6.CO0,OOO tons. They are transport
ed in barges made especially for the busi-
ness, some of them carrying half mil
lion bricks
Ice-Gathering Industry.
One would like to move the brick kilns
away, although they do not deface the.
scenery SO much as the icehouses, and
ice is the second item in the list of tonnage.
During the winter months 10000 men are
employed harvesting ice and packing it
away in enormous ugly looking frame
structures, each holding from iO.GU to
10000 tons. Not less than $J,UU0.OOO is
invested in ice during each winter. The
icehouses are inf1ammable as well as ugly,
being constructed of double walls OF
boards and closely packed with sawdust.
There are several hundred of them along
the river banks, great and small, and
some of them burn down every year, but
1t does not cost much to replace them
The business, until a few years ago,
was conducted by 1jO or more of different
firms, which were consolidated into the
knickerbocker Ice Company and after
ward taken into the trust by c. w. Morse.
% hale I><.&r, -,
keepsie and Albany, is the center of the
ice industry, and there the first business
originated. Originally the ice harvesters
dug great holes in the ground, in the
fall OF the year filled them with ice cut
from the river during the winter. covered
1t with earth until spring and then ship
ped it down to the city in sailing vessels
during the summer. The business has
seen much ch ange Each ice house has a
gang of men attached to it and a field
from which IL receives its supply. That
field Is cultivated as il 1t were wheat or
corn. The men are kept busy in the early
winter clearing Off the snow until the ice
has frozen to the proper thickness. when
they esaw 1t out load it upon sledges and
haul 1t up an inclined plane into the ice
houses, where 1t is packed away until the
summer, when they float it down to the
city in enormous barges.
The next item in traffic is grain re-
ceived from the Erie and Champlain
canals. 1t is brought by steamer across
the great lakes to Buffalo, passed through
the elevators into canal barges and
towed through the canal and down the
river to other elevators, through which it
is transferred to ocean steamers.
Agricultural Produce Handled.
The largest item of agricultural prod
uce handled on the Hudson is hay, which
is baled up state and fioated down on
great flat boats, hundreds of thousands
of tons of it, to feed the horses in New
York city. Immense quantities of fruit,
vegetables and other garden sass and
dairy products are fioated down also, but
they are also sent by rail in larger
quantities. All the milk cream, butter
and dairy, products are sent by rail. be-
cause they can go quicker and be handled
easier that way. The river takes the
heavy and bulky freight
On both banks. all the way to Albany.
great gashes cut into the hillside show
where building stone and foundation stone
have been clipped out and sent to New
York city. Nothing is wasted The small
er pieces are ground up in mills into fine
phalt pavements and similar purposes A
million tons of crushed stone is floated
down the Hudson to New York city every
year, and almost as great quantity of
cement. There are several very large
cement mills which send cloud of dust
constantly toward the sky, and the stone
crushers are quite as numerous.
The fish industry is not SO large or so
profitable as it used to be- nOtWithStand-
ing the fact that hundreds of millions OF
small fry are turned loose into the waters
of the Hudson every year from several
hatcheries supported by the state. II is
a mystery where all the fish go to. but
the popular opinion is that they run out
to sea. The fishing industry on the river
these days scarcely supplies the local
market. except during the shad season,
which begins about the first of April and
continues for couple of months Schools
of shad ASCEND the river to spawn. Years
ago they used to go as far as Bakers
falls, nearly fifty miles above Troy, when
the farmers came from many miles on
either side of the stream and camped out
for days and sometimes weeks. catching
fish to salt down for a years supply be-
fore they began their spring plowing
But the building of dam across the
river put a stop TO this practice and the
upstate farmers now have to buy their
ficial report OF the state fish commits
sioners. more than 900 men were engaged
in shad fishing on the Hudson last year
and they used $500 nets to catch 1,312, 900
fish. These figures are approximately
accurate because every fisherman is COM
PEELED to report the number and weight
of his catch at the Catskill station of the
state commission.
The fishermen work all summer on the
farms and do chores in the spring
and fall. At odd times between the fish
ing seasons they mend their nets, cut
fresh poles to anchor them by, repair
ness before the advent of the skirmish
line Of an unnumbered host is annO,lnc-