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VOL. XXXII. CLEVELAND. DECEMBER 28, 1905. s ee. WINTER MOORING AT BUFFALO, Buffalo, Dec. 23.---"Yes, we are laying up the lake fleet as fast as we can and doing the best we can by everything, but it is very much like trying to do a department-store business at a peanut stand". ; This doleful and no doubt intentionally exaggerated statement was made a day or two ago by a leading vessel broker. All he meant was to state with all possible force that the port of Buffalo was undertaking a very hard job and that it was bound to carry the job through, for there is no getting out of it. The usual late fall fleet is Here and it must be taken care of, just as the tramp lodger is when he applies at the police station. This is not saying that the winter fleet is not welcome. Far from that. The only regret is that there is no longer the room for the tonnage that there should be, so that when the last boat is finally tied up there will be craft more than a mile up Buffalo river, craft a mile and a half up the Blackwell Ship canal, craft at the steel plant four miles above the mouth of Buffalo river, craft some miles down the Niagara, not to mention the overflow to Tonawanda of about all the craft small enough to get down there. To begin with there is a matter of a little over three miles of grain and flaxseed to winter afloat, something never approached in amount before. Often there is not a million bushels, and even now, with*not a bit of corn offered in this way, there must have been some very un- usual influences to bring so much here to remain through the winter. For the elevators are all full besides, at rates that are somewhat higher than they have been before, a few steel houses getting 2 cents a bushel for holding to any time up to April 15th. - Had there been corn offering in proportion to the crop there would have been much more than could possibly have been taken care of, but the new corn crop is hardly dry enough to handle in that way, besides the special ex- port all-zail rate on corn is taking it to the seaboard so fast that the lakes have been*robbed of their dues ever since the crop was ready 'to move. So we shall have to be content with wheat mostly. As accounted for now there is something over 5,000,000 bushels of it afloat to hold through the winter, or as much of the winter as the shipper desires, about 2,500,000 bushels of flaxseed and 430,000 bushels of rye, oats and barley. This ought to mean plenty of care-taking through the winter, including much effort to keep the harbor open to movement of ves- sels, especially fire tugs,. ' The new situation in the harbor, revealed by the want 'of dock room, is one not to be lost by the careful marine ' man. -Though it may not happen again that such a grain fleet is driven in here at the end of the season, for - the close of the season, supposing it to have been prac- tically last week, found over 5,000,000 bushels waiting to unload, still it is quite possible and so it would be well to do all that can be,done to make a place for the fleet. It is not likely that the inner harbor can ever be enlarged very much as it is by any sort of foresight or outlay, though the operations above the turnpike bridge, with its elevator, iron works and million-dollar malting plant may be the beginning of opening Buffalo river up a mile or two further, but that is still a problem. The completion just now of the Pennsylvania ore and coal dock on the city side of the steel plant calls atten- tion to the ship canal lately finished there, with the Buffalo & Susquehanna iron furnaces on the- opposite side of it. There will need to be a good many vessels laid up in that harbor, though it is far from the city and is not easily reached by land except by private conveyance. So the vessel owner will be interested in the work on the new ship canal leading down the Niagara from the mouth of Buffalo river, on which work will begin soon and which will open the Niagara several miles to deep- draught vessels, : Odd that the car shortage has had a sort of contra- dictory effect on the business of Buffalo harbor. At first it shut off business and increased the all-rail movement, for a car once secured was made to keep going. Then there was a further giving out of cars, especially through Canada, and there was nothing to do with Lake Superior g:ain but to send it here to lay up or leave it a thousand miles further inland, subject to winter all-rail rates. So it came here, ' The harbor is now filling up also with. hard: coal, loaded : oo. a since the coal shipping season closed. The Lackawanna Company is rebuilding its coal-storage plant east of the city and so is short of room. It had considerable of a certain size on hand and has taken six vessels to put it into, paying 15 cents over spring rates. It is possible that quite an addition to the 35,000 tons or so already taken will be taken also. Heaven forbid that there should be any serious fires in the harbor this winter. The city has a charge to-keep such as it has not had before. Joun CHAMBERLIN,