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CHAPTER XL
CANNING INDUSTRY IN MAINE
Canning Maine has a leading place in the canning industry. Almost all kinds of fruits and vegetables are used by the packers, but blueberries and corn are the chief of them.
Corn In 1860 Isaac Winslow of Portland began the work of canning corn. Since then it has become a leading industry and Maine corn has become famous. It is estimated that nearly $2,000,- 000 are invested in the business, having an annual value of nearly two million and a half dollars.
Blueberries
The value of the blueberry canning industry, which is con- fined largely to Washington County, is about $125.000.
A MAINE CORNFIELD
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CHAPTER XLI
ICE BUSINESS IN MAINE
History
In 1826 Rufus Page of Richmond built the first ice house with a capacity of fifteen hundred tons, but it was not a . In 1860 the business for the first time became profitable.
success.
Growth Large companies entered the ice fields. In 1880 1,426,800 tons were cut, in 1890 it was 3,000,000 tons. The organ- izing of the ice trust, transfering much of its harvesting to the Hudson River, and the manufacturing of artificial ice has taken from Maine this once profitable business. Even the figure of the Ice Man has disappeared Decline from the State House window, and it is doubtful if the ice business or the ice man will ever return.
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LOGGING ON THE KENNEBEC
CHAPTER XLII
FORESTS AND LUMBER
History
The land office was organized in 1828 under an act to pro- mote the sale and settlement of public lands. Enoch Lin- coln, the governor of that time, appointed Daniel Ross the first land agent.
We find that in 1824 under an act to promote sale and settlement of public lands, the governor and council were empowered to appoint and commission an agent to superintend and arrange the sale and settlement of public lands. James Irish received the appointment.
In 1875 a resolve was passed amending the constitution of the state by striking out the words "Land Agent" from Section 10 of Article 9 of the amendments.
In 1876 an act was passed empowering the governor and council to appoint a land agent.
In 1890 the land agent was made forest commissioner under an act to create a Forest Commission for the protection of forests.
Forestry In 1909 at the suggestion of the wild land owners, an act District was passed creating a Maine Forestry District, and pro- viding for protection against forest fires therein. ..
The acreage of the Maine Forestry District is about 9,500,000 acres. The forests outside of the district contain about 4,500,000 acres.
An annual tax is assessed upon all property in said district. which now gives a revenue of about $112,000.00, which enables the state to obtain from the Federal Government an allotment of about $7,000.00 per year.
Standing follows : The standing timber in the State of Maine is estimated as Timber
Spruce .11,630,000,000 ft. board measure
Spruce Pulp 9,610,000,000 ft. board measure
Fir 2,288,500,000 ft. board measure
Fir Pulp 1,943,000,000 ft. board measure Pine
5,060,000,000 ft. board measure
Cedar 2,781,000,000 ft. board measure
Hemlock 880,000,000 ft. board measure
Poplar
1,123,000 cords
White Birch
1,109,980 cords
Yellow Birch 2,033,500,000 ft. board measure
Maple 1,403,500,000 ft. board measure
Beech
.12,000,000,000 ft. board measure
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FORESTS AND LUMBER
Square Miles of Forest There are in farms 9,000 square miles. It is estimated that 2,400 square miles included in the farm lands consist of woods, add that to the part remaining as a wilderness, and there are 22,000 square miles of forest lands, a territory equal in extent to the combined areas of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Con- necticut. By these figures it will be perceived that notwithstanding the fearful inroads made upon forests by fires and the lumberman's axe, Maine is still a well wooded state. It must not be considered, however, that the whole wooded area consists of timber lands. It is doubtful whether one- half of it may be so considered. The wooded area includes everything covered with trees, no matter if those trees, however ornamental, are utterly worthless for commercial purposes.
Sale of Wild Lands Fifty years ago the state owned a large portion of the wild lands. It is useless to recall here the short-sighted policy pursued in parting with the land, most of which was sold for twelve cents an acre, notwithstanding the fact that it was covered with valuable timber. Today the state owns only the lands reserved for school purposes in unorganized townships. Practically it owns no wild lands at all.
Lumbering in Maine
From the earliest days Maine has been a lumbering state. The spruce and pine along the banks of the Saco, the Androscoggin, the Kennebec and St. Croix, and the tribu- taries to these waters, were easily accessible, and the logs were borne cheaply and swiftly to the lumber mills, located at those convenient inter- vals where nature had kindly and thoughtfully placed waterfalls, so that man could harness the flowing force and make it turn the wheel of industry as it sped on its way to the great ocean.
Yearly Lumber Cut The lumber business of Maine has been from the earliest times and is now one of its most important industries. For illustration, the average yearly cut on the Penobscot alone was more than 150,000,000 feet, board measure, or 7,500,000,000 board feet during the fifty years that closed the nineteenth century. It may be safely estimated that the cut in the entire state for the same period was 25,000,000,000 feet. These are enormous figures that stagger fancy-but they are facts.
Growth of Trees Most valuable timber trees are of slow growth. Careful observation and study by expert foresters prove con- clusively that it requires from one hundred fifty to two hundred years for a spruce tree to grow from the small plant to fifteen inches diameter, breast high. The white birch is a faster growing tree, requiring from fifty to one hundred years to reach maturity. It is esti- mated that 40,000,000 board feet of white birch are cut annually in Maine, and hitherto not much care has been taken to preserve the small trees, but a change for the better has taken place.
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THE MAINE BOOK
Spools and Novelty Manufacturing Two great industries came to Maine by reason of its pos- session of fine white birch, namely spool making and the wood novelty business. It is hardly necessary to refer to the Willimantic and the Maverick Spool Manufactories, or the wood novelty concerns of the Russell Brothers of Farmington, as examples of these industries. If the birch timber cut had gone solely to supply our own manufactories the yield would probably have supplied home demands without impairing the birch timber; but fully one-half has been shipped in the shape of spool bars to supply the spool manufac- tories of Great Britain.
Pulp and Paper When pulp and paper first began to be manufactured from wood, poplar only was used. It is a fast growing wood and there is a fairly good supply of it in Maine today. But spruce is now the favorite pulp wood and the demand for it to supply the great pulp and paper plants of the country is something enormous. Maine today stands second only to New York in the manufacture of pulp and . paper, and was first in the year 1916. This state has thirty pulp mills and twenty-eight paper mills, and in addition thereto the monster pulp and paper plants at Rumford Falls and Millinocket employing 10,696; capital invested $80,422,988, annual value $40,179,744.
Rumford Pulp-Wood But a greater marvel, illustrating the growth in wood- pulp paper and allied products, is afforded by the great International Company at Rumford Falls, which shows to what wonderful extent industrial developments may be effected in a few years when far seeing sagacity seizes the resources nature has lavishly bestowed and proceeds to utilize them. In no other place and at no other time has ten years produced such a transformation in the State of Maine. Where a decade ago was an almost unbroken wilderness, two thousand workmen now go to daily labor. Their wages reach over a hundred thou- sand a month; and a community numbering more than six thousand people, larger than some incorporated cities, is enabled thereby to enjoy all the comforts and many of the luxuries of civilization. The new town has banks and hotels, water works, and electric lights, deep-laid sewers, fine streets and parks, and a class of residences for workingmen that is the admiration and envy of all the surrounding country for hundreds of miles.
Millinocket Post Cards Millinocket is one of our new towns, yesterday only a wilderness; today it is among the most progressive of Maine industrial centers. Millinocket is the work of a few enterprising men, who by thrift and sagacity and daring enterprises have built up settlements unsurpassed and scarcely equalled in the new and rapidly growing West. The paper company has a daily output of two hundred tons of manila and newspaper sheets-not to count pasteboard
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THE MAINE BOOK
boxes, brown bags, and United States Government postal cards, of which it well-nigh has a monopoly.
Cumberland The Cumberland Mills at Westbrook have long furnished
the finest quality of printing paper to the great book pub- Mills 'lishing houses, and magazines like Harpers, the Atlantic, the Century (with its numerous dictionary and encyclopedic publications), McClures, Munseys, Ladies Home Journal, Ainslies, and many other notable ones, as well as to those firms in New York, Boston and Philadel- phia, which make a specialty of editions de luxe, and fine books sold by subscription only.
Lumber Products There are nine hundred establishments engaged in .the manufacture of lumber and timber products, with seven thousand wage-earners, and products valued at fifteen million dollars annually. Lumbering was begun at an early period in Maine, and has continued to be a leading industry. Owing to the growing scarcity of the tall pine, originally the most important timber cut, spruce has now taken the leading place. Maine's wealth of hardwoods, between seven and twelve billion feet, already receiving attention, is destined to be much more appreciated. Birch is in great demand for spool wood, both for local manufacture and for shipment to Scotland, while beech is called for to be converted into orange shooks for Florida and the Mediterranean ports. General wood-working plants have been built in many parts of the state, especially at points accessible to the raw material.
CHAPTER XLIII
LEATHER AND SHOE INDUSTRY
Tanning In the early days tanning and shoe making were entirely home industries. In 1809 Maine had 200 tanneries, each tanning on an average about 275 skins. In 1869 it was among the first five industries, having a valuation of $1,864,949. In 1879 the business reached its highest mark, being valued at more than $2,500,000. From this time the business has declined because of the decrease in the hemlock bark supply and the new methods of tanning.
First Shoe Factory It was about seventy-five years ago that the first shoe factory of which we have any record in this state com- menced operations. Up to that time most of the footwear had been made by local shoemakers and it was several years before our people generally purchased the factory product instead of having their feet measured for their boots and shoes. Although Auburn has been the leading town in the manufacture of boots and shoes and now gives employ- ment to three-eighths of the shoe workers in the state, the industry did not originate there. The first factory of which we have a record was started in New Gloucester in 1844 by A. P. White, who at first employed 17 hands. He moved to Auburn in 1856. In 1848 John F. Cobb started a factory at North Auburn, at which time the two factories gave employment to 38 hands. Mr. Cobb moved to Auburn in 1856, shortly before Mr. White.
In 1854, Ara Cushman began the manufacture of shoes at West Minot. This third shop increased the number of factory workers in the state to 60, and by 1860 the number employed had reached 110. Mr. Cushman moved to Auburn in 1862. Thus a nucleus of the industry was formed in Auburn, about which other shops have been built until now the city is the Statistics 1917-1918 center of the shoe industry in Maine. Since these early days it has had a steady growth until today it is one of our four leading industries. There are 40 establishments with an annual product valued at $39,660,000, an annual payroll of $7,312,000, employing in 1918, 6,653 men and 4,536 women.
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HAULING LOGS IN THE MAINE WOODS
CHAPTER XLIV
MINERAL RESOURCES
General Information Maine is rich in rocks, from her quarries to the great boulders. Aroostook County, the garden of the state, is underlain with calcareous slate, which makes its soil won- derfully fertile. Northwest of Katahdin begins a belt of sandstone, which sweeps southwest, forming the northern shores of Moosehead Lake. Between the Kennebec river and the New Hampshire line, to the Piscata- qua, the rock is chiefly syenite, gneiss, mica and talcose schists-which alternate with each other to a confusing degree. Sweeping across the state rearward from the eastern border of the banks of the Kennebec is a belt of slate many townships in width. It is from this that our roof- ing slate comes. The middle section is metaliferous, abounding in iron and lead, with traces here and there of the precious metals, gold and silver. Sandstone, fit for building purposes, is found south of the Penobscot down to the sea. Copper, once mined extensively in Blue Hill, is once more being produced there by the largest mining concern in America. Iron ores in Piscataquis County have been worked with profit and are probably about to be extensively operated. Lead ores are found in Lubec, where it has been mined, and zinc and copper are present in appreciable quantities.
Granite and Gneiss Granite and gneiss are found in every region of the state, and are famed all over the Union. Great cargoes of it go everywhere, and Maine granite can be seen in the most stately and luxurious buildings in great cities of the country. Some of the limestones of the Thomaston belt are fine enough to be termed marbles ; but use of this stone for making lime is found to yield a surer return than marble quarrying. The dolomites of Warren are extensive and valuable in paper-pulp manufacture. Boulders of fine statuary marble line the east branch of the Penobscot. C. Vey Holman, former state geologist, is responsible for the statement that nickel and platinum both occur in several localities.
Serpentine, the handsome green stone, steatite (soap stone) are found in considerable quantities and only the depression in the price of silver has prevented its production, as this metal occurs in minable quantities. If it goes permanently, as now seems likely, to one dollar an ounce, Maine would become a producer of silver.
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THE MAINE BOOK
Granite Quarries . In her magnificent granite quarries Maine has inexhaust- ible sources of wealth. It is no exaggeration to say that the state has granite enough within her borders to supply all the cities in the world with building and paving stone for many cen- turies to come. The work of fifty years in its 152 quarries has left hardly an impression, while there are countless sites for quarries that have never yet been operated. Like marble or slate, granite is of better quality the farther it is removed from the surface; hence, the longer a granite quarry is worked the more valuable it becomes.
Granite is well distributed over the state, being found in every county. In some sections the distribution is far more liberal than in others, for sometimes the underlying rock of a whole town, or even a larger extent of territory is granite, while in other cases only here and there the outcrop- pings of this rock are seen. The Hallowell granite is famous everywhere; the Frankfort, Hurricane Isle and Vinalhaven and North Jay scarcely less so. These are all of the purest white. But at Red Beach within the limits of Calais, there are other shades, all beautiful and capable of taking a fine polish. The prevailing shade is red. At Addison are unlimited quan- tities of black granite, susceptible of a striking polish, and in great demand for monumental purposes and for interior finish for buildings.
White Granite The white granite of Maine has been used in such notable structures as the Capitol at Albany, N. Y., the monument at Yorktown, Va .; the U. S. Government Building at Chi- cago; the tomb of Grant at Riverside Park; Arnheim Mausoleum, N. Y .; Wayne County Court House, Detroit; State, War and Navy Buildings, Washington; Masonic Temple, Philadelphia; Custom House and Post Office, Buffalo; General Wood monument, Troy ; Pilgrims' monument, Plymouth ; Gen. Thomas monument, Washington; and Bureau of Printing and Engrav- ing at the National Capitol. The red granite is conspicuous in the Museum of Natural History in New York Central Park.
Granite The greater portion of her granite quarries are located in Public so near tide-water that the produce can be easily trans- Buildings ported to all the large cities on the Atlantic Coast. Not- withstanding this fact it is also true that the large interior cities like St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Albany, Milwaukee, Pittsburg. Buffalo, and many others, have drawn largely on Maine granite for the construction of their more costly and beautiful public buildings and fine business blocks. The demand for granite for state buildings, bank and insurance structures, and private residences, is likely to be greater in the future than in the past. Our granite resources are inexhaustible, and will remain a source of perpetual revenue.
Feldspar While mining of feldspar, mica, and tourmalines cannot be classed among the leading industries of Maine, yet for many years mines have been worked in a commerical way, and there are
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MINERAL RESOURCES
probabilities of expansion in all of them. The feldspar quarry and mill in Topsham is operated with increased demand for the product year by year. At Hedgehog Mountain, in the town of Peru, feldspar in large quantities and of excellent quality is found.
There are also quarries of feldspar in South Paris of much worth. There are at present two mills for its grinding in the state, one in Port- land and one in Topsham. The grinding is a slow process, being done by attrition, and flint pebbles are used for the purpose. At the Portland mill it is ground finer than flour. Ground feldspar is used extensively in the manufacture of stone ware, and that of Maine is said to be the finest in the country. A great deal goes to Trenton, some to East Liverpool, Ohio, where there are extensive stone ware works.
Quartz is also ground, some going to glass works and some to sand paper works. The demand is greater than the supply, so there is no diffi- culty in finding a market.
Maine is usually either first or second in the annual output of pottery feldspar, alternating with New York.
Mica Deposits Mica seems generally to be associated with feldspar as do also the tourmaline, and beryl gems. There are several mica mines in Maine, only two of which have been con- tinuously operated. They are nearly all situated in Oxford county. So far as records show the first mica for commercial purposes was furnished by the town of Paris in 1871. For several years mica mining was carried on there but the mine was considered more valuable for tourmalines and other gems, and therefore mica mining was discontinued. In 1891 a new mica mine of great promise was discovered on Hedgehog Mountain in Peru. Mica is somewhat scarce in this country, and a large part of that used comes from far-off India. It is said by those competent to judge that the mica found at Hedgehog Mountain is superior to the Indian mineral. It is certainly remarkably clear and transparent. Mica that will square six inches by twelve is very valuable, being worth several times as much a pound as small pieces. Scrap mica, that is, pieces too small to cut, is worth about eight dollars a ton. This scrap mica is used in powdered form in fire proof paints, in the inlaid work on book covers, and for many other purposes.
The
Maine possesses that rare and precious stone, the tourma-
Tourmaline line, prized all over the world. At Mount Mica, in the town of Paris, is a deposit of tourmaline, green and red, famous in mineralogy, and unequalled elsewhere. They are apparently inexhaustible in quantity, as they are unrivalled in quality. Cut into gems they adorn many a brooch and ring and necklace, and are stored in museums for their beauty. No such wealth in tourmalines is elsewhere known-at least this side of the Mississippi.
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THE MAINE BOOK .
Practically the entire supply (a very small quantity) of the rare metal, calsium, now in existence in America, was taken from a lepidolite mica deposit in Oxford County, Maine.
Lime Industry Knox County, Maine, stands ready to supply all the lime the world demands for centuries to come, and within the limit of profitable transportation the Maine product fears no competition. For over a hundred years the lime business has been growing, small at first and worked in the simplest manner. Yet from the first it has been profitable, and has given employment to an ever increas- ing number of men.
Like other lines of industry the men directly employed in the min- ing and burning of lime are not the only classes supported by the business. Lime production has a direct effect on shipping. The lime that Knox County furnishes the rest of the state is a mere bagatelle. The great bulk of the product goes to Boston, and New York, even as far as Galves- ton, Texas; and goes by water. It takes a sizeable fleet of vessels to carry all this lime and to bring the coal and wood used in the burning. When the lime business is good, coastwise shipping from the Knox district is profitable, and all along the rocky bays of Maine the touch of prosperity is felt. This is one of the allied industries. Back in the country districts we find another. This is where they are making the barrels in which the lime is shipped to market. Even beyond the cooperage region, still further inland we come to the hoop-pole belt, where one of the important occupa- tions is the cutting and splitting of young growth to make the hoops that bind the staves of the limecask. The average annual value of the lime itself is more than a million dollars. Perhaps in no other way can the magnitude of the interest be brought out than by the statement that there is a standard gauge railroad, eleven miles in length, located in Rock- land, which does nothing but carry limerock from the quarries to the kilns, and carry back such coal as is needed for the quarries. Last year it hauled 113,209 tons of rock. Its transportation earnings were sixty-two thousand dollars.
Molybdenum is found in large quantities in Maine, in fact
Molybdenum Maine has probably the largest deposits of this mineral in the world. It is found in Cooper, near Machias, and at Catherine Hill in Hancock County. Molybdenum is a mineral valuable as an alloy with steel to which it imparts self hardening and other wonderful qualities, intensifying greatly its ductility, toughness, malleability, capacity for elongation and for withstanding tensile and other stresses. There is no material known superior to molybdenum steel as a lining for modern "built up" ordnance; and for this and kindred purposes metallurgists have demonstrated that it possesses double the efficiency per unit of that other wonderful metal, its only rival as a beneficiator of steel, the element tungs-
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MINERAL RESOURCES
ten. It is by increasing the fineness of the grain that molybdenum accom- plishes its function of doubling the tensile strength.
Reports of engineers who have examined all the molybdenum deposits of the world agree that the ore body exposed at Catherine Hill exceeds in tonnage and in uniformity of its dissemination of the mineral any other known on earth. The mineralized, molybdenum bearing ore as shown by present exposures is more than half a mile in length, over five hundred feet in width and of a proven depth exceeding seven hundred feet.
Mineral Maine has eighty-one mineral springs, while several others Springs have already been discovered whose virtues are less fully known, and probably others will yet be found. The sales from all springs would place the gross amount received for Maine mineral water between $300,000 and $400,000.
There are employed in the bottling houses and in driving teams to convey the water to stations, from 150 to 200 men at good wages. The sale of Maine mineral and medicinal waters is increasing rapidly and can even now be classed among our important industries. The sales will con- tinue to increase as the purity and the curative properties of the water from our springs become better known by means of advertising, the best advertisement being the testimony of persons who have been benefited by the use of the water.
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