Back in the first half of the nineteenth century New York was the leading wheat-raising and flour-producing state. The first flour mill in the Buffalo district was run by water power furnished by the Erie Canal. As larger mills followed and steam took the place of water power, Buffalo became an important flour-milling center. Later, wheat began to be raised further west, and the Central States soon took the lead in wheat growing and flour milling. But Buffalo had the advantage of an early start. Its mills were already built and working. Grain from the West kept pouring into the city to be stored in its great grain elevators, and the production of flour increased. Larger mills were built, some of them making use of the Niagara water power. To-day there are more than a dozen companies in Buffalo operating flour mills which turn out over 3,000,000 barrels of flour in a year. [Illustration: THE BUFFALO HOME OF THE NEW YORK TELEPHONE COMPANY] Buffalo's slaughter-house products for a single year are worth millions of dollars. There are two large meat-packing firms in the city, slaughtering over a million cattle and hogs each year. They both had small beginnings in the butcher business more than fifty years ago. In 1852 the first stockyards were opened, and the city's live-stock industry began. Shipments of live stock from the grazing states of the West increased until the city became the second cattle market in the world, Chicago alone handling more live stock than Buffalo. When first settled, the lake region was covered with forests, and lumber was one of the first products sent eastward by lake steamers. Millions and millions of feet of pine were towed down the lakes on barges and transferred to canal boats at Buffalo, and the city became one of the great lumber markets of the country. Although shipments from the Northern forests have not been so great in the last twenty years, the lumber industry continues to be of great importance to Buffalo. In addition to pine from the lake region, the city receives hard wood from the South. You see enormous piles of lumber in the yards of the city itself, and Tonawanda, a suburb ten miles north of Buffalo, has the largest lumber yards in the world. These yards carry on a large wholesale and retail trade, and sawmills, planing mills, and many lumber industries have grown up around them. Mill work, doors, mantels, piano cases, and furniture are some of the things made in the Buffalo workshops. [Illustration: THE CITY OF BUFFALO] [Illustration: THE ARMORY] While commerce and industry were thus developing, the city itself was growing in size, population, and beauty. It extends about ten miles along the shore of Lake Erie and the Niagara River. In the residence section there are thousands of beautiful homes, set well back from broad streets and surrounded by wide lawns and gardens. Delaware Avenue, with its branching boulevards and parkways, is the finest of these residence sections.