the present plan the licenses are sold at public auction at $20 per square mile, with an additional charge of $8 for renewal. The dues on pine and spruce were fixed at $1 a thousand feet and in 1904 increased to $1.25. Ten thousand feet of lumber must be cut each year on each limit. In 1883 the amount realized from sales was $38,462 for 3,117 square miles. Ten years later under the new long-lease system the lands were sold at public auction for twenty-five years, the amount received for premiums and leases in 1893 being $89,830. There were then issued 1,387 leases at an average price of $17.25 a mile, and since then the number has steadily increased until practically all the available Crown lands of the Province have been brought under lease. In 1899 1,170 square miles were leased at an average of $21 a square mile. The policy of long leases has resulted in material benefit to the lumbermen and contributed not a little to the prosperity of the trade. The receipts of the Provincial government for 1903 from sales and renewals of timber licenses were $46,898 and from stumpage dues $122,630, making a total of $169,528. The first act for the preservation of forests from fire was passed in 1885. By its provisions fires must not be started between May 1 and December 1 except for clearing land, for cooking and for other necessary purposes. The penalty for failing to take the necessary precautions in the selection of the places for these fires and in their extinguishment after they have served their purposes includes a fine varying for $20 to $200. Railway locomotives must be equipped with spark arrestors and section men must be given instructions to watch for and extinguish fires caused by railway trains. In 1897 further legislation to protect the forests from fires was secured when statutory authority was obtained for the appointment of forest rangers. The year 1903 was a notable one for unusually severe forest fires. It was estimated that during that year two hundred million feet of timber was destroyed by fire. The conflagration wiped out an entire village besides destroying many other buildings. Some important changes in the mileage and stumpage rates and conditions under which licenses are issued took effect in 1904, all being in the direction of greater stringency. Under the regulations now in force the upset mileage on limits is $20 a square mile, and the mileage payable yearly on renewals is $8 a square mile. Licenses are to be for not more than ten nor less than two square miles and the licensee may be required to cut ten thousand superficial feet a square mile. The holder of timber limits is not permitted to manufacture a log measuring less than eighteen feet in length and ten inches in diameter at the small end. The stumpage dues are as follows: Spruce, pine, fir or hackmatack saw top, per 1,000 feet.. Pine timber up to 14 inches square, per ton....... Hackmatack and spruce timber, per ton.... Hemlock, per 1,000 superficial feet... ..... White birch logs, for spool wood, per 1,000 feet.. .......... .$1.25 1.10 .10 .80 1.25 .25 .65 1.25 .60 .80 The following statement, taken from the surveyor general's reports, shows the quantities and kinds of timber cut from Crown lands during the fiscal years ended October 31, 1902 and 1903 respectively: This statement, it should be borne in mind, covers only the cut upon public lands under license and takes no account of the very large quantity taken from forest lands belonging to private owners. PRODUCTION OF TIMBER IN NEW BRUNSWICK. CHAPTER XX. NEW BRUNSWICK-RECENT OPERATIONS. Notwithstanding the extent to which lumbering has been carried on, the supply of spruce will last for an indefinite period under the conservative methods of cutting, as the spruce is a tree of rapid growth and will attain merchantable proportions in thirty years. On the public lands no tree is permitted to be cut that will not make a log of ten inches diameter at the top, eighteen feet up, although many private owners allow the cutting of small spruce for pulpwood. The One strip is cut over The next year the ad Many of the large limit holders follow a system of rotation. land is laid off in strips of one and one-quarter or one and one-half miles wide and from five to ten miles in length. each year and all the merchantable trees taken. joining strip is worked, and so on until the larger of the young growth of the first strip is available. The tracts nearest the great rivers have been most thoroughly worked and each year the operations are more distant from the point of shipment. The portable or small rotary mill is much used on small tracts of private land, and the annual product is considerable in the aggregate, but does not figure in the provincial returns. While the large mills are most numerous near the river mouth, still there are many scattered through the interior with facilities for shipping their product by rail or floating it down the rivers to the coast. While spruce is the great article of export there is a large cut of cedar for shingles for the United States and local markets. A good deal of hemlock is also sent to the United States as boards and there is a growing trade with Britain in birch for spool wood. The pulp industry is undergoing a great development and new sources of supply, tapped by railways in districts from which the large timber has been taken, provide raw material for the pulp mills. THE ST. JOHN DISTRICT. St. John is the center of the lumber manufacturing and shipping trade. As the River St. John is over four hundred and fifty miles in length and has numerous tributaries, it drains an immense territory not only in New Brunswick but in the adjoining State of Maine and in the Province of Quebec, so that a large portion of the logs manufactured in the St. John mills come from outside the Province. The manufacturers as a rule do not operate in the woods, but contract at so much a thousand feet for the cutting, rafting and driving of the logs to their mills. There are three log driving companies-the Madawaska, St. John River and Fredricton boom companies and also a company on the Tobique, the chief tributary of the St. John in New Brunswick. Driving is always an uncertain feature, as the Grand Falls, 225 miles from the mouth of the St. John, have a descent of seventy-four feet, below which is a narrow and deep gorge through which logs must pass, Logs are often hung up for the season or damaged by a jam in the gorge. The leading shippers from St. John are W. M. Mackay, who ex ports about one hundred million feet annually, George McKean and the A. Gibson Railway & Manufacturing Company. W. Alexander Gibson, of the latter company, has been engaged in the lumber trade for about a half century. He commenced life as a poor boy and advanced step by step until he became manager of the finest mill in the Province. About 1864 he acquired the lumbering establishment of Rankine, Ferguson & Co. on the Nashwaak River about two miles from Fredricton and undertook a series of improvements, establishing a number of other industries such as cotton mills, tanneries, etc. The village erected by these activities is called Marysville. He subsequently extended his lumbering operations to the Miramichi district and built the Northwestern railway, opening up large tracts of timber lands in that region. In 1871 the firm of Randolph & Baker erected a large mill two miles from the mouth of the St. John, which mill is one of the best sawing dimension lumber for the British market. The firm's plant has an annual capacity of twenty million feet of long lumber, and it also ships quantities of lath to the United States. Frederick Moore, of Woodstock, New Brunswick, was born in Canterbury, York County, New Brunswick, in 1839. Between the years 1862 and 1884 he was one of the heaviest operators in Aroostook County, Maine, cutting from 5,000,000 to 15,000,000 feet of spruce annually for the St. John, New Brunswick, market. In 1884 he built a sawmill, with a planing mill, on the Maduxnakeag River, a branch of the St. John River, for cutting logs from the Aroostook region. He occupies a prominent position in the New Brunswick trade. In 1904 a total of 183 vessels cleared from St. John with lumber, a slight increase over the 171 lumber clearances in 1903. In 1904 cargoes embraced 463,585 tons, or 172,995,507 superficial feet, while the cargoes of 1903 included 411,546 tons, or 174,360,562 superficial feet. The shipments were to Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and ports in Spain, Australia and other countries. In 1904 the shipments of birch were 3,567 tons, compared with 4,498 tons in 1903. Pine timber shipments were fifteen tons, a marked decrease from the forty-eight tons shipped in 1903. Shipments from the thirteen other ports in New Brunswick in 1904 brought the total amount of deals and other lumber shipped from the Province up to 641,711 tons, or 358,851,893 superficial feet. St. John's export trade in forest products is larger than that of any other port in Canada, except Montreal, amounting in value during the fiscal year 1903 to $4,298,308, including the following items: Pine deals, $10,801; spruce and other deals, $2,496,467; planks and boards, $624,943; shingles, $339,699. THE MIRAMICHI DISTRICT. The Miramichi district has witnessed changes similar to those which have characterized the development of the industry in the region tributary to the St. John. It had formerly its pine timber and lumber period and extensive shipbuilding operations. The trade of the present day is mainly in spruce deals, with some business in spool wood and a growing demand for pulpwood. There are two branches of the Miramichi, which unite about twenty miles from the bay into which it flows and have a tributary area of many thousand square miles. The streams extend far westward toward Maine. The great bulk of the cut is spruce, only about five percent being pine, with some hardwood, cedar and hemlock. Practically all timber lands tributary to the Miramichi and Crown lands are owned by the New Brunswick Railway Company. Under the regulations in force for cutting there is a chance for the spruce to reproduce itself and, while the average size of logs shows a decrease, there is no absolute clearing of the forest. The more desirable tracts are becoming less accessible yearly. The railway company looks carefully after its timber interests and has a staff of scalers and foresters, charging a rate of $1.50 per 1,000 feet to opera tors. The log cut on the Miramichi for the season of 1902-3 was 125,000,000 feet, as compared with 123,000,000 feet for the previous season. Miramichi ranks next to St. John among the lumber shipping ports of |