there was a decided reduction of export of this material, due to the stagnant condition of the spruce market.

The principal article of shipment from Montreal is pine in the form of deals and boards, while other St. Lawrence ports ship principally spruce deals and square and waney timber. Exports for trans-Atlantic markets during 1903 and 1904, by ports and shippers, were as follows:

Other St. Lawrence ports, including the City of Quebec, make the

While white pine and spruce make up the great body of the export of lumber from the Province of Quebec, other woods, including hardwoods, still figure in an important way in the trade of the Province. To show the volume of this business and the conditions surrounding it at the latest date available for this work, we give the following quota

tions from an annual trade circular, issued by J. Bell Forsyth & Co., of Quebec, bearing date of January 9, 1905:

White Pine.-The stock of waney pine shows considerable increase in recent years, while that of square pine is the lightest on record. The continued advance in price of both waney and square pine has at last told on the export. As the manufacture this winter will not exceed half the past season's supply, and as makers seem unable to reduce their prices without actual loss, it seems evident present values must be maintained or manufacture cease.

Red Pine.-The smallness of both supply and stock shows the approach of the end of business in this wood as square timber.

Spruce Deals.-The export from Quebec and the lower St. Lawrence has been restricted by absence of demand and the inadequate prices obtainable. The cost of production has materially increased owing to advanced cost of labor, enhanced value of limits, and other causes. The demand in the United States for spruce boards being good at fair prices, the tendency is for Canadian mills to send their production very largely in that direction.

Pine Deals.-The ruling prices in the United Kingdom, especially in the third and fourth qualities, have materially declined instead of meeting the ten percent advance paid by shippers for past season's production. Ottawa mill owners can readily obtain from United States markets figures at least equivalent to those paid for deals. It is clear that export business can not continue under present conditions.

Sawn Lumber.-The demand from the United States has been good at fair prices, and in spruce the Canadian mills have cut boards for that market in preference to deals for export in many instances.

Oak.-The exports show a marked decrease, and the wintering stock a corresponding increase. The manufacture of this wood has entirely stopped, and will not be resumed until justified by demand, as western oak can not be profitably delivered at Quebec at present current prices.

Elm.-The supply continues to diminish and price to advance, which will probably be the case year by year till the wood becomes too expensive for export or can not be obtained at all. The stock of rock elm is very small, the figures largely representing soft elm.

Ash.-Will not be made this winter, as demand seems to have disappeared. The stock is ample for probable requirements.

Birch.-The export of this wood continues to diminish from Quebec owing to reduced supply, the most accessible wood having been cut away, and the less accessible requiring prices that are not yet obtainable to induce manufacture.

Through the courtesy of Messrs. Walcot, Limited, of London, we are able to present herewith a comparison of the square and waney supply (equivalent to production), exports and stocks of Quebec each year from 1850 to 1904, inclusive. There has been a marked change in the character of the forest exports sent by Quebec to the mother country. In the early years shipments of boards from Quebec to England were almost unknown, the entire export being in the shape of logs, which were sawed into planks and boards by English sawmills or part sawed to meet the needs of the purchasers. In 1861 a distinction became necessary, the history of the development being thus stated:2

Previous to 1861 the timber shipped was square and of large average, beautifully hewn by the lumbermen in Canada; but board pine-that is, short logs of large girth-were sent down the drives with the other timber, and soon found their way into the market. Being cut from the lower part of the tree accounted for the waney character of the logs, but the quality of the timber was excellent. The loss in girthing them for conversion was considerable, but this was allowed for in the price to the importer. The decline in the quantity of square and waney pine made for the Quebec market is altogether due to the increase of the deal and board trade, and to some extent to the scarcity of suitable trees to manufacture into timber. A large proportion of the trees are still suitable to make into deal logs, but would not be sufficiently large to be made into waney board pine. This is exemplified by the smallness of the square pine that is now brought down from Ottawa. In former days square pine used to be made 70 and 80 and even 100 feet cube average; in the present day it is with difficulty that 40 feet average cube is procurable in square pine, and waney board pine is decreasing in girth annually. Formerly 20-inch and over average cube was easily

2 In the Timber Trades Journal, of London, England.

procurable; today 17-inch is as large as most of the manufacturers will undertake, and they frequently fall below this average on delivery of the timber at Quebec. These changes are graphically portrayed in the following table:

PROVINCE OF QUEBEC-STATISTICS OF SQUARE AND WANEY WHITE PINE TIMBER. IN CUBIC FEET.

CHAPTER X.

QUEBEC-QUEBEC CULLING.

From an early period in the development of industry and commerce in Canada the timber trade has been an important element in the activities of the people. There was a demand in Great Britain and other European maritime countries for ship timber and timber for other structural purposes, which material was sent abroad in the squared form. There was also a call for spars or masts, bowsprits, booms and yards, and there was an extensive manufacture of boards, deals, planks, lath, staves, etc. Much of the cooperage stock went to the West Indies to supply the demand for sugar, tobacco and other packages. The forest products handled were white pine, red or norway pine, elm for ship timber, oak for the same purpose, squares of ash, basswood, butternut and birch. All of the woods mentioned were shipped to foreign ports in the form of square timber largely, much of it being resawed after it reached destination. There were also hickory handspikes, ash oars, "lathwood," as lath were called in the culling rules, and other forms. "Deals" were, as they are now, an important item in Canadian mill output. The word "deal" is synonymous with the word "cant," as applied to lumber—that is, a piece sawed to dimensions suitable for resawing. The standard Quebec or English deal was twelve feet long, eleven inches wide and two and one-half inches thick. A "standard hundred" of deals was one hundred of these pieces. Deals were a favorite form of lumber production, and much of the good white pine and norway pine of Canada was cut into deals.

The Quebec market in the early days, down to 1840 or 1850, was not only the gateway for the foreign distribution of forest products of all Canada, but also that market drew much from the Lake Champlain region of Vermont and New York, and all portions of the last named State which had access to the navigable waters of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. The rich pine of northern Vermont to a large extent went down the Sorel River to the St. Lawrence River and thence to Quebec. The forests of northern New York were extensively drawn upon for elm timber, which was hauled for twenty to forty miles by ox teams, in the winter, to the St. Lawrence, and on that stream was rafted